doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Lefever gun abuse

About two years ago I bought a Lefever F grade, thumb opener, as a project gun. Barrels were badly pitted, out of round on the end and caked in crud. Worse was the metal and stock which had so much old finish it was black with build up. The the gun would not cock the right barrel. But crud can be a good metal and wood protector in my experience. The pits in the barrels might clean up, I will send the to Mike O for a gentle cleanup.

Well I got around to taking it apart today. Everything came apart easily and the stock was in very good shape with no cracks concealed inside. Off the soak for a few days. But then I saw what some cretin did to fix the cocking problem. He tried to bend the sear on the lock plate to compensate for the cocking rod which is worn. Then he got his nasty file out and whacked it a couple of times with that. Why? Fixing the cocking rod is the easy thing to do. Weld it up and dress it back. Even I can do that with very little effort. This idiot has screwed up the sear which will now need to welded up, shaped and then you still need to fix the cocking rod.

Most of the project guns I have had have needed previous "repairs" reversed before you can fix them right. I wish people would not try to fix so much stuff by doing some stupid quick repair because it is fast and cheap. You get what you earn and pay for.

Well said
Mike

However....... If they weren't buggered up, they may not be available... as this one was.
I look at it this way, if it can be made, it probably can be repaired, and I can enjoy the feeling of accomplishment.
No, I am not advocating crappy work, but it may bring opportunity.

Don't forget, that many of the technologies we take for granted today, were not available when these old guns were in regular use.

It's entirely possible that "blacksmith" style repairs put them back in service, and that was good enough.

Fer instance, I can't believe how bad the oral care was back in 1900. Millions of pictures, not a single smile.

I think it�s important to try and understand the situation that family or person might have been in at the time of the repair. Great Depression, etc would�ve called for a cheap and expedient repair comensurate to the owners financial situation. I know we all like to bad mouth what we consider �ham fisted� repairs, but consider the owner did their best to keep the gun working and doing its job. I don�t think the farmer, rancher, small town fella was that concerned with a properly fitted turn screw so they didn�t bugger up screw heads.....Doubt they were really concerned with collector value during those tough times. Doubt the owner back then or even subsequent owners thought that their guns were going to be considered �valuable� in the decades to come.
People nowadays laugh and eye roll at an old antique gun with a wire wrap and brass tack, nail, screw wrist repair, but I see it as that owner back then did the best they could with what they had or could afford. Where in BFE were they gonna send the gun for a true expert repair?? You think all these po dunk towns had U.S. factory trained Gunsmith or a Suhl, Felach, , Liege, Birmingham or London trained gunmakers shop in them?? C�mon now.

Don't forget about the repairs that are done just to get it out of gun show door.

There is a lot in what LeFusil said. I used to fool with the antique two Cylinder John Deere's a bit. You should see some of the Fixes that have been applied to them. Most of them worked, but were anything but Original.

Collectors today complain ferociously about these "Fixes" but they kept a lot of tractors in the field & producing for their owners.

+1 Very well said.

SRH

You could always send your Parker Bros. back to them/Remington/Delgrego; your Ithaca/Lefever/Western Arms back to Ithaca Gun Co.; your Ansley H. Fox back to A.H. Fox Gun Co./Savage Arms Corp.; etc for proper repair. However, most owners of these obsolete old doubles weren't going to spring for that!! For several years my Grandfather's heavy PH-Grade 12-gauge had shaped brass plates and a lot of little wood screws holding the grip together. Eventually a relative who was a gunsmith restocked it for him. A good job, but not Brian Dudley, Dan Rossiter, Craig Libhart, etc. quality

When I was a kid the only gunsmith available around here was the mechanic in the bicycle shop. He must have owned only one screw-driver and it fit nothing, at least nothing on a gun. He usually got stuff fixed, but buggered every screw on the gun he worked on whether they needed it or not...Geo