doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Bad day at Black Rock

Sorry to hear of your misfortune Lloyd.

You seem to be facing it with the spirit of the early aviator who said “Any landing that you walk away from is a good landing. A really good landing is when you can use the plane again”.

Looking at the photo posted by Drew, the top strap had a surprisingly small cross section and may gave been prone to flexing from the down pressure of the rear tang screw.

My guess is that it snapped, the trigger guard would have flexed and the wood then failed under the unusual load.

The broken wood looks clean and free of oil rot. If you have all the bits it may be possible to rebuild the stock with modern adhesives.

The tang could be re-welded with a hidden fishplate set into the stock under the tang?

I can remember reading that a Baikal was opened “like you were breaking firewood over your knee”.
Parts in the cocking mechanism were out of time, causing firing pin dragging right from the factory.

I have Ithaca flues models that I haven’t gotten around to repairing yet, that have the same timing problems.

Even in anger, when they would get stuck, I never bent one over my knee to open it. Remembering the Baikal quote.

I’m sympathetic to Lloyd’s plight, it seems a shame to part out that gun, which is where it’s headed, unless somebody steps forward, but I don’t have any stock blanks to get things going forward.

Reason I suggest crowd sourcing it, is because what looks like a $3000 repair, is only 100 bucks to 30 guys.

And that just means that the wife doesn’t go to Applebee’s next week.

I have 50 misc slabs of walnut. Lloyd, you are more than welcome to a free one. But that’s the easiest part.

Guys...thankyou!

I dropped the gun with Terry Nicholson yesterday. He thinks he can repair it. He has an early Smith top tang in his parts collection and the patience to give it a shot. If nothing else, the repaired stock can then be used for the basis of a duplicate (if needed).

This was my only "artistic" American gun, the rest are pretty functional and rather "plain" so I'll see what can be done with it.

Marks21: A generous offer Sir, and thank you but let's see what a talented old gunsmith can do first.

Just curious--Is Terry Nicolson back in Colorado? The last I heard was he had moved out of state.

As for my two cents worth. After thinking about this some more, I suspect the root cause of this break was when the top tang metal broke, everything else cascaded from there. The question is when did the break happen & what was the cause? Did it separate from the stresses of the build-up of gasses from a pierced primer or did the old metal just give-up the ghost from age or fatigue?

Dogon:

Mr. Nicholson is primarily in Arizona these days but he has a place in Colorado for summer visits.

I have played this break over in my head several times and I'm still having a hard time making sense of it. Your theory about the top tang does somewhat explain it. There was no warning, just total immediate failure. Now...was I employing too much energy in trying to get it to open? The obvious answer is an unqualified "yes".

Hindsight here is pretty painful for me...if I had just quit shooting, if I had tried not using the right tube, if if if. I have always had a bad temper and my patience for cranky old things (of which I have many) is wearing a bit thin these days, but I usually know when to quit.

Terry is very talented, so I'm hopeful.

I thought so. I’m glad you’ve admitted it. You’re not the first guy to break a shotgun in half pissed off about it not opening.
The top strap was probably already cracked.

I have a very rare Flues from the early days with 32 inch barrels. Such a tiny frame and forearm attached to such finely struck tubes. One of the lightest.
The cocking mechanism is worn/damaged, so just like your shotgun, sometimes it just wouldn’t open. Stuck in the primers.

In my case, that usually revolved around taking the forend off and jiggering the barrels off the frame, and then putting it back together and recocking it.

I really enjoy shooting that gun. The problem with the cocking system needs attention, and the guy who would’ve fixed it for me died.

But the thing that has allowed me to save that gun, was that members at my club, deemed it unsafe and petitioned to stop me from shooting it on the club grounds. That was quite the intervention.

It saved that shotgun from an untimely stock death, because we all know the heads of every Flues are paper thin and soaked with oil after 120 years.
Anyway, If the ingredients come together, or the stars align to get your Smith restocked,
I’ll step forward to support the effort.

Lloyd admitted to us what the root cause was... applying excessive force to open the gun after it began sticking due to pierced primers, etc. He said he should have stopped, or at least continued shooting using just the left barrel. Unfortunately, we often find that hindsight is 20-20, and it must have been sickening to hear that unexpected cracking sound. Notably, Lloyd isn't blaming anything but himself, and shared this with us so we might learn from it.

There's a good chance the top tang was left on the brittle side over 100 years ago when the factory case hardening was done. That part is quite small in cross sectional area, and it looks like it snapped off pretty cleanly without bending. It has that frosted and crystalized appearance of a brittle fracture. Same for the trigger plate, which snapped off right across a screw hole... a weak point where a lot of guns break. I recently TIG welded the bottom tang of a Drilling that broke across the screw hole, and need to do the same on an old Trapdoor Springfield rifle tang. These things can be welded or replaced. We see the trigger guard just bent, and could be easily straightened. The wood is another story. Modern adhesives are pretty amazing, but getting a sound repair on this involves having as many closely fitting pieces as possible, and probably a number of well concealed reinforcing pins. As Lloyd says, at very least, a good attempt would provide a pattern for duplication.

The ultimate question is whether a satisfactory repair can be done in a way that makes economic sense. People have often asked me if certain things can be fixed. I tell them that with enough time, and enough money, we could probably raise and repair the Titanic.

In all likelihood, everything that broke or bent did so pretty much simultaneously. The entire wrist area is inherently weak because it is narrow and has inletting and screw holes that don't hold up well when too much leverage force is suddenly applied. We see this sort of thing happen very often due to falls while hunting, or rough handling during shipping. Very old wood or wood that is punky or oil soaked makes it worse, as does previous de-oiling efforts with strong organic solvents that weaken the lignin and cellulose structure of the wood.

So sorry to see your post and your trouble. I had a similar experience with a Parker repro that seized up while I was shooting white box Winchester ammo. It happens in a moment and I beat myself up over it for sometime. Try not to do that as it just proves you’re human. I ended up selling my gun as it was because I didn’t really like it that much other than it being pretty, and I just didn’t want to spend the money to restock and still be reminded of it every time I looked at it. Ymmv but just remember it’s just an object and it was made to use up.we sometimes lose sight of that.