doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Parker Repro's coming apart

How many of you guys have seen the thread on the Parker Site showing the main barrel lug ''Falling off''
a Parker Repro shotgun ? Some say its only the second one they have seen. Talking to some gun smiths I know,
they said they know of about 12 of them. But only because most Repro's are not used much. I know the one I had
was not shot much, hell it kicked like a ''Mule''. So, what is your take on this ?

Dirty Harry

P.S. Has there been a cover up on main barrel lugs falling off , so the price of Parker Repro's stay high ?
,

I would like to see some pictures of some of those reproductions.
We have some very knowledgeable members on the Parker forum and would question such a high number.
That said you are correct that many reproductions are rarely if ever shot.
I have owned 3 and shot them a fair amount and did not ever experience this issue.
Did anyone that had reported a dozen of these separation’s say if these were soft soldered .

what style lugs do those repros use?

I have a 28 gauge two barrel set I bought in 1991 and have shot the hell out of it over the years with very few problems and that wasn't one.

Do you mean like this Parker Reproduction?



I believe that was a brazed shoe lump that fell off the barrels. I keep the photo around simply to remind me to have nothing to do with sleeved guns. Of course a Parker Reproduction isn’t a sleeved gun, but, to me, the point is the same. I’m not sure that what we are looking at can be economically repaired, and, if I’m being honest, I don’t care.

I don’t own a Parker Reproduction.

Best,
Ted

holy cow.....

YES, JUST LIKE THAT ONE ! Now you guys know why I wonder if their has been a cover up about this ''Problem'' just to keep the prices up their.
Now I always taught they were good guns, but $5000 for a $1500 gun, ??? and some even a lot higher !

Dirty Harry

I believe we talked about that on here about on here decades ago. Or I heard it someplace else, maybe. But, that is why I have always avoided them. There were always stories of them coming apart even from the beginning.

I own several Parker Reproductions that I shoot regularly. One of my Sporting Clays Classic's has digested tens of thousands of rounds without a lug failure. I've had a serious and keen interest in Parker Repros since the dark ages, the one shown on the PGCA Forum with the failed lug is the first one I've ever heard of in the five decades of owning, shooting and following them.

I don’t pursue Parker reproductions. When I see them at a gun show, I don’t usually even pick them up. None of my friends that shoot own them.

I’ve seen three, and have a photo of one.

Take it for what it is.

Best,
Ted

Once upon a time, anecdotal evidence like that single photo of a single lug failure might have impressed me and made me leery. Now, I would want to see full details and evidence of the other eleven supposedly known failures... especially after all of the hysterical and inaccurate stories of alleged frame cracking problems in smallbore Ithaca Flues and some Fox shotguns.

Literally millions of shotgun barrels have been produced with the shoe lump method. Virtually all of them have the lump attached by brazing or silver soldering. The number that fail must be infinitesimally small, or else we'd be seeing failure Threads here.

A close up look at the failed joint on this Parker Repro shows a very poor braze joint with roughly 50% wetting. I'd sure want to know if the same barrel-maker who did that one did all of them using the same materials and methods. That kind of braze joint failure can be due to a number or combination of several factors including contamination of the braze material, incorrect temperature, burning of the flux, poor fit and clamping, and more. If that was some part that contributed to a commercial jet crash, the NTSB would do a year-long investigation without jumping to conclusions.

I never wanted a Parker repro. If I did own one, I might want to do a close examination, such as the poor man's Magnaflux, to check for signs of impending failure. As much as I like Lefevers, I was never excited about all the hoopla when there was an effort to create a reproduction Lefever. Why would I, when I can easily have the real thing?

A sleeved gun that was chopper lump to start is nothing like this and no more likely to fail

He knows that.

Known Main Lug problems, 2 on the Parker site, 3 on this site , and the 12 I mentioned on this site.
Total of 17 We know of, all in different parts of the country. Just think of how many We don't know of ?
Oh, and by the way, the picture Ted showed of a Parker with a failed lug, the gun looks like it was hardly used, or ''shot''.

Dirty Harry

P.S. Was just on the Parker sight, the fellow who posted the pictures of the ''BROKEN'' Parker said the owner of this Parker
also HAD A 28 ga. repro. that came apart, I had failed to count the pictures of that 12 ga., so that makes 2 more broken Parkers
Total of 19 know broken Parkers, and it looks like there in all gauges, but more in 12ga. because most produced were in 12ga.

Do we have knowledge of the gauges of the failed guns? tmc

Can we get a link to the threads that describe the three Repro failures on this site? I don't seem to recall reading about them.

duh sky is fallin...

duh sky is fallin...

hit really is...

ain't hit...?

This is a bit surprising for me actually. I'd always thought (or been told) the the repros were better than the originals, better steel, more consistent assembly, etc. Now I'm not so sure about all of that. Do the original guns ever have this issue?

Enhanced but small image that Ted posted, from
https://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=638769



I'm sure a Parker expert knows when Parker Bros. went from brazing



To silver soldering?
https://www.shotgunworld.com/threads/parker-28ga-vh-value.570016/

I don't know if anyone has sent the remains of one of these guns to Dewey Vicknair, or if he would be willing to provide an opinion, but he no doubt could explain the failure

BTW: another alleged cracked frame Flues

Dirty Harry, are you saying you know of 17 different Parker Repros with lug joint failures? If so, can you be sure the total does not include guns that were counted two or more times? And do you have any details or evidence whatsoever about these alleged failures, including photos, 17 different serial numbers, and the circumstances leading to the failures? I ask because we saw photos of the same very few cracked Ithaca Flues frames posted and reposted so many times on this and other gun forums, that it made the alleged problem seem real. In the end, it turned out that there was hysterical rehashing and some purely anecdotal evidence. In addition, when we did get actual details of actual cracked Flues guns, the majority were subjected to severe abuse, doubling, and loads that were unsuited for a light upland gun. The big problem was an "expert" making a mountain out of a molehill.

https://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=609802&page=1

So far, we've seen one photo that pretty clearly shows a poor braze joint. But zero RCA (Root Cause Analysis).


At this point, we don't even know if they were all Parker Repro guns. And we don't know if people are counting the same failures multiple times. Or any details at all. Welcome to the Internet!


Good point eightbore. Neither do I, except for this one that looks very familiar. You'd think the Preacher would have posted links and pictures of these alleged failed Parker repros... ad nauseam...

https://doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=638919&page=1


I'm quite certain Dewey Vicknair would immediately see a poor joint due to some brazing error or fault. If he had the barrels in hand, he might even detect signs of contamination or burned flux. He could then elaborate on the possible causes. I've already listed several possible causes for such a poor joint, but I'm not making any wild-assed guesses based upon a photo. With the scant information we have now, he couldn't know if some sort of severe abuse contributed to the ultimate separation failure. He never claimed to be a metallurgist, so I don't think he'd have the means to do any spectrographic or chemical analysis.

I would like the Preacher to tell us about his personal experience with soldering, silver soldering, brazing, etc., and how he determined what particular process was used on the Damascus Parker he showed us. In my shop right now, I have several alloys of silver solder. Most are a silver/tin color, due to their composition which is presumably mostly tin with a smaller percentage of silver. Some silver solders contain significant percentages of lead or nickel too. But some have a distinct brass or copper hue, because there are many different alloys of silver solder and brazing rod. Some alloys of brazing have a silver color. The distinction between the processes lies mainly in the temperature required. In addition, we do not know that joint is original. The excess material on the barrels just ahead of the flats suggests some past repair may have been done.


Unfortunately, Dewey totally deleted his account here due to buffoonery, and even managed to get his old posts deleted. All of the PM's we exchanged are gone too. If he saw the picture of this latest cracked frame Flues, I'd bet he'd want to know what sort of abuse led up to it finally breaking, after holding up just fine for 90 years or so. I wish he was still here to counter buffoonery from wannabe experts, but I don't see that happening any time soon.

It is more likely to fail than a monobloc.

The problem isn’t the joining method, the problem is that they are joined at all. The guys that were building guns that had the barrels entirely hogged out of a solid lump of steel had the right idea.

https://www.longthorneguns.com/the-range/innovation/

Remember, Kirk Merrington considered relaying ribs to be regular maintenance.

Best,
Ted

I wouldn’t consider that shoe lump construction, of which I’ve never seen fail. It’s good enough for Westley Richard’s to use for their double rifles, as well as Heym.

As I understand it, platform lump and shoe lump are the same basic type, with some differing a bit in the amount of "purchase" the brazing has to work with. They differ from almost all other methods in that they have no mechanical joining but are totally dependent on the brazing/soldering to stay together.

This is the only available description, with drawings, that I am aware of. https://www.hallowellco.com/lumps.htm

In the drawing on Hallowell's site, for shoe lump construction, you can see the additional area for braze, as compared to the amount of area in the pic of the Parker Repro above.

On this or a referenced thread, it was said that the Repro ribs would come loose if the repair were done by brazing or silver soldering at high temperature. On this or another referenced thread, it is said that the Repro lugs and ribs were brazed. Well, which is it?

Obviously, it wasn’t good enough to use on this Parker Reproduction. Regardless of semantics.

Best,
Ted

____________________________________________________________________________________
That Longthorne looks better every time I see a picture like this.

Now here's a man that speaks from experience.

Lack of experience has never stopped Ted.

Nothing is good enough with poor workmanship in the finished product.

Perhaps you misunderstood what I was saying. I have seen three Parker Reproductions THAT FAILED, exactly like this, and I grabbed a photo of one when I had the chance. The point I was trying to make is I don’t have a dog in this fight, just a bit of evidence.

When they first came out, I looked a bit at them, but, that was before the steep discounts when they were discontinued. The single trigger versions had a horrible trigger, a buddy referred to it as “crunchy”, as good a description as I could come up with. That little experiment, on Parker Reproduction single triggers, went on for far, far, more than 3 guns.

The late Don Thompson had them stacked like cordwood, new in the box, on his tables at the end when he did local shows. I never got the bug, the concept of a reproduction seemed like a good idea, but, I had other interests.

The Prof has zero evidence, of anything related to a Parker Reproduction, but, runs his yap, anyway.


Take that for what it is, as well.


Best,
Ted

I guess no one is going to answer my question about the post that stated that Repros ribs were brazed in place. Well, were they brazed or soldered?

Neither.
I thought it was Elmer's Glue, but Raimey opined that it be JB Weld.
...
:-D

I don’t know if anyone can say for sure that the production methods stayed the same from the beginning to the end. Perhaps they started with silver solder, got the money to make an investment in a braze furnace, tried that for a while, and either kept going with it or bounced back to soldered.

Who knows? I am pretty sure the problems I saw, which, were three reproduction Parker’s, were failures to brazed joints.

That’s all I’ve got.

Best,
Ted

"Parker Reproduction's barrels are hard brazed together rather than being soft soldered." -- quoted directly from Parker Reproduction company brochures.

Maybe that one was brazed on a Monday morning, by an employee with a hangover.

There's brazing, and then there's brazing.

The name of the process doesn't determine the quality of it.

'' What about the other 18 of them We know about ? ''

Dirty Harry

which of the following is correct:
a) winchester made the parker repro's.
b) winchester had some japanese company make them.
c) csm made them for winchester.
d) other

I was asking about the ribs, not the lugs. If the ribs were brazed, as a previous poster stated, then brazing the lug back in place would not be as difficult as with soldered ribs.

From what I remember Winchester was never involved in making the Parker Repo. A guy named Tom Skeuse had them made by Olin- Kodensha with Winhester's permission. The name Winchester license was used only to import the guns, so their name was put on the guns because of that.

so its, b). thanks.

No. Winchester did not PRODUCE them. Read my post again. The name Winchester was put on the guns only because their license was used to import them. Winchester had Olin-Kodensha make the Winchester Model 23. But from what I always understood Winchester did not make the Parker Reproduction. Maybe someone will correct me if I am wrong. (Keep in mind- some people do refer to me as Dimmy from time to time.) 😄

Where in the world did you come up with that info? Hearsay? We all know how hearsay holds up. Do you actually have any documentation of these claims? As for your claim that 12ga. Repros were the most produced, of the approximately 12,250 Parker Reproductions produced there were about twice as many 28ga. guns made than 12ga., and about three times as many 20ga. guns produced as 12ga.

Wild Skies, you belong to the Parker gun club ''Union'', ask them how many Parker Repro's are falling apart,
and while you are at it, get it documented. As for the the number of Repro's made, all records were destroyed in a hurricane
in 1999. Jack Skeuse,some years later, gave the number of Repro's made by memory. ''NO DOCUMENTS ON IT''


Dirty Harry

parker gun club union....good one.

The Parker gun collectors Union boys are finally talking more about the Repro's coming apart.
I think they are coming on this tread and ''Learning'' that their are a lot of repro's lugs breaking apart.

Dirty Harry

We've seen photos of exactly one Parker repro that had the barrel lug braze joint separate. We have not heard any information about how it happened.

After all of the hysterical misinformation posted on this and other internet sites concerning a frame cracking problem with small bore Ithaca Flues guns, I need more to make a sound judgement about these "Problem Parkers".

One failure could mean an isolated case of using the wrong method and/or materials. Several failures confined to a very narrow serial number range could mean the same. A bunch of scattered random failures (with evidence) could actually mean something significant. A properly done braze joint can approach the tensile strength of the parent metal.

I'd like to see a lot more photographic evidence, along with serial numbers of the guns that failed... and details of the circumstances leading up to the failure.

I don't care to hear rumors or hearsay. You might as well tell me you saw Bigfoot on water-skis and the Loch Ness Monster flying a UFO.

That same factory also did the Classic Doubles line and all the Winchester 101's.

Keith,
I’ve seen three broken exactly the same way. Details were few. I got a picture of exactly one. Startling to me is, to a one, they were basically brand new guns. I’ve seen broken guns over the years, but, those guns tended to be old, and used hard. On Parker repop gun number 2 that was broken, you could say I started to pay more attention.

I posted the picture above. It isn’t rumor or hearsay. The f-er was broke, bad, and, it was going to take someone of considerable skill to make it right, that, or another set of barrels. I’ve asked right here, a few times, what does it take to repair a gun with brazed ribs that come loose, and I’ve never gotten a satisfactory answer. Repairing a gun with a separated brazed lump would be at least as tough.

The people that run the state of Minnesota have made it far, far tougher to have a gun show, and along with an aging population, they are a shadow of what they once were, and an hour or two gets me through the typical gun show, now. They used to be two or three day events, and you got to see more things, more guns, more friends than you do today. The last broken Parker repop I saw was a solid decade ago. Again, I was never interested in owning one, but, seeing one in the condition of the picture I put up was a bit like seeing a bad wreck I wasn’t involved in. Interesting, in a “Thank God that isn’t my gun” kind of way. Considering the change in the gun show landscape, I don’t know if it is fair to say we are seeing, or have seen every gun that had the problem.

I have no dog in this fight.

Best,
Ted

Ted, I also have no dog in this fight. I have never owned a Parker repro, and probably never will... unless one pops up at a give-away price... never say never.

So the only photo we have to verify a Parker repro with a separated barrel lug was taken by you. That seems rather odd, if this is anything close to a common or widespread problem. Especially in a time where virtually every cell phone has a camera. If it was commonly happening, people like the Preacher would be collecting every photo they could find, and hysterically posting them on multiple firearms forums dozens of times. And for all of the panic over small bore Ithaca Flues frame cracking, we still don't see evidence of even a dozen different guns... out of nearly a quarter million made. And it appears the few that actually did crack at the breech/water table juncture... were severely abused.

That's why I refuse to rush to judgement about these Parkers. I went for years believing that small bore Flues frames were prone to cracking in normal use. That turned out to be bullshit, like many things posted on the internet.

There may be 18 other broken Parker repros out there... or there may be many more... with other potential failures on unfired guns. All anyone needs to change my mind is some verifiable proof.

I have already noted that the braze joint in your photo was indeed a bad one. I see roughly 50% wetting between the two mating surfaces. Some of the bare spots are on the barrels, and some are on the lug.

What we cannot know from a photo is the braze material that was used... the temperature of the parts during brazing... the flux used... the fit of the pieces being mated together... the clamping stability and pressure... contamination of the surfaces... the skill of the person who did it... etc. Analysis by a good metallurgist could tell us a lot. We also don't know what happened at the point of failure. For all we know, the barrels got launched from the gun after being fired with nuclear reloads assembled by the Nutty Professor.

The difference between repairing a braze joint vs. a solder joint lies mainly in the materials used... and an increase in temperature for brazing. Brazing happens at greater than 850° F. and solder less than 840°F. Shotgun barrel rib soldering is normally done with alloys that melt around 400-450° F. Brazing is normally stronger than soldering. But both must be done right.

Bill, you are a lifetime Union member with the Parker Gun Collectors Club Union, so I am sure you have a lot of pull there.
Just ask Dudley the stock maker, He should know. Just in case He doesn't know, there are a few dozen ''Experts'' there that will know.
Than let us know on here what you find out, so we will all know the answer to your question.

Dirty Harry

Not sure this, constitutes a coverup. You’d need way more than the 20 or so you claim exist in order to have something to cover up. The guns themselves are a bit of a boutique item, and, it would appear plenty of guys bought them and never fired a shot out of them.

I will say, seeing one with the lug broken free is alarming. I guess it would be far more alarming if I owned one.

But, I don’t.

Best,
Ted

As I've said earlier I have a 28 ga. I shot a whole lot. I also have a 20 gauge that I have not shot as much mostly skeet and 7 years ago 5 days of Scottish rain for driven birds. Both guns never failed me though they are a bit heavy.