Hello,

I thank you in advance for any advice you can give me.

My family's home and firearm collection is burnt to a crisp. Over the next few weeks we will be sorting through what is left with the insurance adjustor. I was already able to pull everything from the safe which was unfortunately near the hottest part of the fire. The stocks look to have turned to charcoal and all the metal is charred looking and has smoke and melted plastic coving it. Metal parts do not appear warped and I was able to open all actions to allow for drying.

My preliminary judgment of them is that I will want to send some of the special ones to someone like Turnbull Restoration while others I will try and replace. I have my fingers crossed that we will receive some insurance money for them.

These were not appraised and insured so there is most likely going to be a cap on how much the insurance company is going to give for them.

I'm not completely sure how this works yet, but I may need a professional who I can bring these to in the Phoenix AZ area for a post mortem appraisal. If you can recommend someone to me, I would appreciate it. Without getting too specific, damaged firearms included ww1 and 2 rifles and a few civil war era pistols.

I would also like advice on where to send a few of the ones that were really special to us for restoration (assuming its possible). Turnbull was the first that came to my mind, but maybe others have some advice.

All advice is welcome. Thank you, and please don't let this happen to you!

Brent, I believe Browning offers a restoration service, but they are the only ones I am aware of. I have a friend in WI who owns a gunshop, and he was tasked with sending several firearms back to Browning after a house fire. I do not know costs involved, I just know that what Browning was able to do was nothing short of amazing.

Best wishes to you and yours, Sir. So sorry to hear of the misfortune.

if the springs have been collapsed by the heat the heat treatment of all parts have been lost.
Do yourself and others a favor and saw the receivers into about 4 parts and dispose of them. There may be small non-heat treated parts that can be salvaged. Other than that, use the money on replacements and move on.

Brent, I should hasten to say that among the services that Browning offers is a knowledgable determination of whether or not the firearms are worth the cost of repair before the restoration is done. In short, they are professionals, and I would suggest an authority as to whether or not the firearm is worth repairing, with testing and analysis tools at their disposal.

Thanks for the replys everyone. In the event that they are damaged by the heat, would it be plausable to have some of the more valuable actions re-hardend? There were some old Win 70's that I would love to save and rebuild if its not cost prohibitive.

Going to send a one or two special ones to Turnbull for restoration and claiming a loss on the rest for insurance $.

A family member's house burnt a few years back. The guns were mostly damaged by the water runoff and acidic smoke, not so much the heat. Even in this environment it really did a number on the metal. I did a little home reblue touch up , a Citori went into a hot tank for bluing at a cost of about $200.

In your case I'd do my best to work with the insurance company. If they got hot enough to burn the stocks I'd bet there is little value. In the above case the insurance company never wanted to take possession of the guns, even the ones with a claim paid. No he didn't come out ahead with the fire claim.

His fire started with an unattended grill on a composite deck.

Check with a tax guy. You may be able to do something with the loss not reimbursed. Check with NRA if a member. You may be entitled to something from them. Really a shame!!!!