Earlier this week I stumbled on a nice little 20ga Sterlingworth to keep company the 12ga Fox pin gun my dad gave me for my 16th birthday in 1968. This gun is s/n 252xxx (1913 I believe) with 28" barrels. Yes, it has been restored, and while not Turnbull level work, I think whoever did it did a pretty decent job. New case colors, barrels reblued, and I'm pretty sure it is not the original stock. Not a mark or ding on the wood, and the checkering is not the flat diamonds but rather sharp with the side panels also checkered. It is 14 1/4" LOP and what appears to be an original hard butt plate. A nice, tight gun with the opening lever well right of center.
The only real issue was with the safety in that with it in the
on position and when the forward trigger was pulled, it would force the safety to the off position and fire the right barrel. Using the excellent procedure I found by Mike Campbell on stock removal, I was able to solve that problem within a couple of hours. Thank you Mr.Campbell! BTW, there was no auto-safety rod, in fact no tunnel present, and no s/n stamped in the wood.
I had a local gunsmith measure the chokes and chambers before shooting the gun. The chambers at one time had been opened up to 2 3/4", but the thing I found odd was that the right choke measured .027" constriction while the left is only .009". On Wednesday I got to shoot 4 rounds of skeet with it using some light 3/4 oz. loads I whipped up, and came away with 4 decent rounds of 25-24-25-23. I tried going from back trigger to front on some of the doubles, and while it seemed to work OK, it sure doesn't feel natural. Since the gun is no longer original anyway, I'm thinking about having the right choke opened up a bit, and of course leaving the left alone. Any thoughts?
Anyway, at $1200 I almost dislocated a shoulder going for my wallet!
(Sorry for the crappy iPhone pics.)
