This is a good lesson to everyone- the rib can hide a multitude of sins.
To strip and re-lay the rib will take a good man 12 hours to do properly.That means expensive!Then the barrels will need re-blueing.
You are in abit of apickle. My advice - get agunmaker to look at it for you. He won't charge you much and it will be worth an expert opinion for peace of mind. the tubes could be very rusty under the rib.
My finisher told me recently of a client with a Boss sidelock. A small hole in the rib joint was pointed out to him and he was advised to have it sorted out - but he was too mean (he is landed and titled) in the end the gun came back and had to be sleeved because of the rust under the rib! I saw the gun. It was very nice and deserved better treatment.
I was shooting on Saturday and one chap was using a 16-bore AYA No.2 (quite a descriptive name for the gun actually) and mid-morning the rib popped up half an inch, about an inch from the breech.
