A friend recently returned home after visiting family in his old hometown, and he brought with him a prize given to him by his longtime sister-in-law, the wife of his late brother.
This prize falls under the category of “beauty being in the eyes of the beholder.” His prize is a 12-gauge Winchester Model 24 side-by-side shotgun owned by his late brother. It was manufactured between 1940 and 1957. Model 24s were good, sound shooters that Winchester could continue to build for awhile as less expensive repeating shotguns became popular.
My friend asked me to examine the gun and show him what to look at to determine what kind of shape the gun was in and see if it was safe to shoot.
If one has, or is planning to buy a used side-by-side shotgun, especially an older one, it might be worth having a good gunsmith inspect it, if it passes your preliminary inspection. My friend handed me his prize, and I quickly looked the entire gun over, noting immediately that nearly all the bluing was worn from the action. That does not necessarily mean the gun is in bad shape or unsafe, just that it was well used.
With both side-by-sides and over-unders, I look first at the barrels, since if they have serious problems, I stop right there. Some barrel problems can be solved, but I do not want to deal with them. Hold the barrels up to a good light source and examine each carefully, looking for rust, pitting, dents, and bulges. Do it again, but this time rotate the barrels while examining each. Check the outside of the barrels as closely as the inside.
Look down the rib specifically for dents or slight signs of it being crooked. Either could mean the rib was removed and replaced, which could mean it is out of alignment. Ask about any crookedness, specifically if the rib was ever taken off or the barrels were apart or partially apart. If any of those had occurred, there could be point-of-impact issues that must be checked at a patterning board. Ensure by measuring that chambers are in fact 2 3/4 inches. Some early American guns had shorter chambers. If so, it is sometimes possible to lengthen them.
I was pretty sure the barrels on this Model 24 were 28 inches long, but one never wants to guess. For one thing, barrel length in old American doubles will nearly always inform you of how the barrels are choked. Improved-cylinder and modified chokes will nearly always be found with 26-inch barrels; modified and full chokes will nearly always be found on 28- or 30-inch barrels. These guidelines are almost always true of the lower grade guns, while manufacturers sometimes allowed custom ordering for chokes on high-grade guns, though they are often not marked.
Having exactly even barrel lengths in American shotguns, such as 26, 28, or 30 inches, generally shows the barrels have not been shortened. One problem with shortened barrels is that the chokes might have been removed. That might not be a problem, especially if you are willing to install modern, screw-in chokes. Shortened barrels might mean the barrels have come apart (partially or fully) and now might not shoot to their proper point of impact. If that is the case, it is probably best to pass on such a gun.
Look at the side of the barrel lump near the hinge hook to see if it is dented. Denting the barrel lump with a hammer and punch was a common way to temporarily tighten the action on a break-open gun. It was once mentioned to me as a way for shady dealers to pass off a worn gun. To be honest, though, I was taught that method about 40 years ago to tighten a gun I wanted so I could shoot it safely. I declined the gun at the time.
Slamming break-open guns opened or closed, which surprisingly I still see fairly often, will hasten the loosening of a gun’s action and make it unsafe to shoot. On old guns, especially, hinge pins will wear with use, especially if in addition to hunting, an owner also shot a lot of clay targets during the offseason. Really, though, for most good guns, closing the action too hard caused the most problems. A loose action is often a serious problem and sometimes not worth fixing.
Hold the gun up to the light with the action closed and look for light through the joining parts. If light shows, be aware a problem exists, or soon will. If the light emitted is very minimal you are probably safe to continue shooting the gun. If you can twist the gun’s action at all by hand there is a looseness and potential safety problem. Loose actions can be fixed, but you must determine if the cost is worth it. I would not buy or shoot a loose, break-open shotgun.
If a gun has screws that are all chewed up, it very likely has been worked on by someone with little gunsmithing skills. You are probably better off leaving such a gun on the rack.
Look for cracks in the stock behind the safety and behind the plates of a sidelock. L.C. Smiths unfortunately crack behind their sideplates more often than desired. One can get a new stock made, but it is expensive.
Everything on my friend’s Model 24 turned out to be in reasonably good shape, except the bluing, but the gun could easily be reblued. Is his new shotgun a prize? Certainly it is. The shotgun belonged for years to a brother he shared hunts with and is missed. While my friend no longer hunts, his brother’s old 24 brings back pleasant memories, and that makes it a valuable prize in any market.
Facebook
MySpace
Digg
Stumble
Mixx
Fark
del.icio.us
LiveSpaces