doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Barrels shortened. What to do?

I was eyeballing a clean pre-war Greifelt O/U today, getting ready do finances in my head. It looked to be in nice condition, till I asked about the chokes. The guy across the counter pulled his handy dandy choke gauge and said Improved and Mod. That seemed a little odd, because in my experience most of the Germanic guns have been full and fuller, or something like that.
I took a good look at the muzzle and darned if the barrels hadn't been cut, not very well, to about 28". Don't know if it had a bulge or what, but the end of the barrels, rib and joins had been lopped off. I could still feel a burr and a lip on the rib and the bluing was gone on everything at the muzzle. I didn't have a wall thickness gauge, but am optomistically wondering if I can simply have the muzzle squared, rib and joins filled, barrels threaded for chokes and be back in business.
I'm guessing a lot of value left when the hack/chop saw came out, and wondering if that would offset the cost of making things right. Thoughts?

not unless the dealer is paying you to take it off his hands....

to tell the truth if you can just have the barrels squared off, voids filled , and live with the remaining choke....and pay 33% of book value for the gun,..but Id just walk away.....

It could be a useful field gun, but it will never be "right".
I would want to measure chokes and bores carefully, and then get it for a very low price.
Flawed guns don't get better with time.

That gauge he used isn't all that accurate. You need to measure bore diameter and at the end of the barrels to see how much construction you really have. Then figure in if you're just going to clean it up yourself or pay to have it done and shoot it the way it is, or the cost for choke tubes. Discount the above plus 30 % for cut barrels and it'll get you in the ball park for value. Good luck - Paul

+1 to this.

From years of education, at the school of hard knocks.

Ya wanna collect it, or ya wanna shoot it? Collectible value is shot (pardon the pun) but there are some guns with cut barrels out there that have made a lot of hunters happy.

These guns were all made for fiber wads and modern wads make them shoot very tight, and sometimes "blown", patterns. It is not at all uncommon, on "using" guns, to have the chokes altered, chambers lengthened, and less often-barrels shortened. In my often disregarded opinion, unless you expect to make a lot of money selling this gun, you are better off with this gun than one that is "right". It doesn't make sense to pay a premium for an unaltered gun and then alter it to make it useable. My advice is to square the muzzle up ,polish it( the muzzles of new German guns were usually "bright" anyway) and use it as long as your legs allow you to follow a bird dog. BTY "choke" is designated by a percentage of shot in the pattern, and the common gage cannot measure this.
Mike

FWIW, I went to an auction about three years ago that had several vintage sxs's for sale. Everyone of the guns had had 2" lopped off their barrels because the fellow who owned them was a huge quail hunter behind pointing dogs and wanted virtually no choke in either barrel. They all sold cheap for sure. To me it depends on usage and on what you can get it for. Nothing wrong with having a rainy day gun or a beater gun.

I recently brokered the sale of 3 12 gauge side-by-side double guns, for an estate settlement. A Parker GH- 30" uncut Special Steel barrels, DT, non ejector- M&F chokes, 2.625" chambers made in Meriden in 1926-- And two OO grade L.C. Smith doubles, both in 85% condition and with Armor steel barrels- DT, ext. field stocks- one had uncut 30" barrels- the other had the barrels cut to 27&58"- the Smith with the "unmolested" barrels sold for almost 4 times what the "butchered" OO grade fetched- Any idiot that cuts the barrels down on any good shotgun deserves to have the fleas of a thousand camels infest his crotch for the next 10 years--Only other disaster would be to take a Pigeon grade pre-1950 Model 12 Trap gun with the older style milled rib, and cut it down for either a Poly-Choke or a Cutts Compensator- both "God-damn pickles" as my late Grandfather would say. Never share a duck blind or a goose pit with someone using such a "FUBARed" pumpgun.

Unless you're going relegate the gun to knockabout field use, I would walk away.
In my experience you'll spend more time aggravated about it, trying to come up with ways to have it "made right" than it's worth.

Joe