I have done it all, or it seems like I have. I have just cleaned old guns and left them with their warts and wrinkles. I have partially or fully restored them as their condition and value merits. I have restored them far beyond their value for personal reasons. And I have restocked, refinished, customized, altered, opened chokes, added second and third sets of barrels, ect... ect... . I have never taken a hacksaw to shorten a set of barrels. Never ported any gun that I have owned, although I have several that other idiots did before I bought them. Wish that had never been done.
Upgrading is a slippery slope that you fall down before you know what you have done. Trust me. Most custom jobs start out as just a minor change that got out of hand. A few of us are looking for just the right gun to upgrade but most of us just have it happen.
It almost always starts out on one end or the other. Poor butt stock that needs attention. Cracked, oil soaked, short, low, ect... If you have to restock a gun you might as well use a nice looking blank. Even the fanciest blanks are not that much money and they do dress up a gun. So I use a $100.00 +/- blank, (sometimes a lot more), instead of a $25.00 blank. Crotch walnut always looks nice on a gun. If I have to spend all that time doing the work it might as well look great when done.
Then after you restock the gun you see that the barrels need a little draw filing and rust blueing. Well the should be protected, and they do look ratty so you do it.
Then you look at the reciever and see that it needs a little attention as well. Like a Parker I bought with SS# on both sides, engraved with a hand engraver pen. What an idiot. Well a little fill time and a ton of hand sanding and polishing to get it perfect again. But you lost the little bit of hand engraving that was from the factory. No big deal, send it out and have it redone. But first, talk with the engraver and find out that engraving it two grades higher is only $250.00 more than the plain factory style and you upgrade.
Now you have a great looking gun, with a nice stock, great barrels and new scratching, but it looks too shinny. So off to the case coloring place it goes. In two weeks it is back and looks like a mint.
Good color, nice wood, nice barrels, prety to look at and shoot. But you know it is missing something. Read a few post here and learn that it needs a leather covered recoil pad. Third attempt it is perfect. But it now needs a case to travel in. Buy a few on Ebay, buy a few at gun shows, try to customize one yourself and then splurge and have one custom case made for your gun.
Sounds out of the question. Well let me sell you my Parker. If you think that you were ever upside down in a car you have no clue how bad it can get. I have a $1,500.00-2,000.00 gun that I have at least $4,000.00 in and that does not include my labor. Real investment is about twice that much if I count my own time and labor. Perfect looking 20 Parker, it does look like a much higher grade but it is not. I would do it again but might have to make it an even higher grade. After all, they may make B cup implants but I bet they sell more D cups so if you have to lie, lie large. AA grade here I come.
