Rob bought the barrels as an inexpensive way to improve his gun. So is there also something wrong with putting non-original barrels on his gun and parting out his original barrels?

It's a curious romantic notion that there's important inherent value in preserving as originally built a worn, nicked up, non-rare field gun of little monetary value. Seems very strange that some would damn the moral character of a person they've not met who doesn't happen to be religious about this ... sentimentality running amuck.

As another generation passes, I'm afraid many of these guns will decline dramatically in value and go to scrap anyway.