I would like to put another view point here about gun repairs and how attitudes have changed and I am making it from my experience as a Precision engineer not a gunsmith.
Now in my training which I must admit now was a long time ago, it was always impressed on me that if you undertake to perform a repair what you do must never leave the item in a worse condition than when you first started to repair it. I have always tried to keep to at least the spirit of this but as we all know things can go wrong, and hand on heart I have started things that have gone pear shaped and I wish I never started.
I have posted two photographs taken of put back on the face repairs to a couple of guns in my collection, I am assuming both repairs where undertaken in the eighteen hundreds. Both guns are Jones under leaver with Damascus barrels though this is really of no consequence to what I want to say.
In the first pair of photograph this type of repair back then was considered respectable and a normal every day working repair. But today by our standards we could judge it as incredibly poor standard of a big hammer repair.
In the second pair of photograph is a repair that we today would say was of a high standard.
If you let me I will assume that the guns owners was pleased with the result and paid for the repairs.
Now this is my personal view on the repairs taking in to account what I said at the beginning of this post.
The first gun with the half-moon punch marks on the hook has not been materially changed in any way other than aesthetically so the person who did the work did not leave the gun in a worse condition than he was given it.
The second guns repairs was far more complex and I must assume that the repair costs where far higher than the “punch job.” But what has it done for the gun, as far as I can see it has in fact left the gun in a far worse condition even though it put the gun back on face. Firstly the material the joint pin was manufactured from is as soft as butter that is not a crime in its self if you go to the trouble of case hardening it, but this had not been done.
Also in replacing the pin they omitted to have it engraved because I am sure the original pin was because the gun is an Adams though the guns action was made by Joseph brazier.
My point in all of this is to restore the guns in working condition today. The gun with the hook adjusted with the punch would need the hook built up by whatever method and putting back on face.
The second gun on the other hand will need a replacement joint pin manufacturing because the pin that is in the gun at the moment has also been fitted below the action surface as well as being soft, and of course engraving to suit the rest of the gun and putting back on face.
