doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Army & Navy restoration process and pictures

This is a continuation of the Silver bead thread but it also includes the finished gun, I wanted to take pictures outdoors but since it has been raining for the last couple of days these pics will have to do,...here it goes

I bought this gun in around 2001,... a 30", 12 bore A&N CSL ( I believe made by P. Webbley & Son) was in pretty rough shape not abused but somewhat neglected,...wood was sound but dark and oil soaked, tear drops almost gone and all the crisp edges around the locks and diamond grip rounded off from a poor refinishing attempt, checkering was also buggered up but not totally ruined,...thank God whoever the "bodger" was he had enough sense to stop there.

The first thing I did was to bend the stock to fit and added the correct length pad, then shot the gun and decided it fit well and I liked it enough to continue the work, the gun was stripped down and remained literally in pieces until now,...

The bbls rang true, the bores were fairly good although not pristine and required minor polishing, and they were also off the face. The action had quite a bit of surface corrosion , ranging from light to heavy in spots,..I annealed the action and fore end and re-cut/re-freshened all of the engraving and made some new screws where required
After removing the old oil and dirt I started working on the wood. It took about a week to carefully bring back the wood, to reshape and sharpen the area around the locks and make the tear drops and diamond grip resurface again and at the same time making the leather covered pad,.. the stock work was completed about 3 years ago and remained for the most part off the metal until now.

After completing all the metal work, I case coloured the action and rust blued the bbls, and yes..... replaced the old bronze bead with a nice silver one

CJ



These are some of the before pics as well as a few from the hard fitting after CCH


























Locks and all the other bits and pieces





bbls ready for bluing



-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is the finished gun , it's been a long process,......I hope it meets your approval!

CJ

Beautiful. Every sad old gun should be so lucky. Would you call this gun refurbished, restored, or remanufactured? Or, something else. I'd be really interested in opinions as to how this gun would be valued in the market.

Mr. Opacak,
This is a reincarnation... not a restoration. I admire the talent and craftsmanship demonstrated, and I thank you for sharing your pictures and talents with us to enjoy.
Marvin Breedlove

Post deleted by NCTarheel

Thank you Mr Breedlove glad you're enjoying the pictures

Thank you Rocketman, I was hoping you would work your formula on this one

CJ

It seems to me that this is a fully remanufactured gun; for all practical purposes, a newly hand-built "best gun". And a beautiful job as well.

Now, how do you value it???...Geo

The local store here had and Army & Navy, looked nice. What is the story behind A&N guns?

C.J, very nice workmanship. Did you keep track of your actual hours? From your description of the original wood condition, the final results are excellent.

C.J. I think your work is very , very nice. I especially like the way you "bought back " the wood, that probably just wasn't there after years of wear. Very pretty checkering and borders. Did you have to bend the sidelocks a bit to make up for the wood wear ?

Only one word form me...Stunning.

Would you like a Charge Card for the case lid? I have several different styles I could mail to you.

Regards, Gordon