Today The dream came true..... ish!!

I got a call from a certain Irish man a few weeks back about a 20-bore Purdey that had been stolen and had the barrels sawn off. the gun was then used in a robbery at a post office for a few hundred Euros.

After that is was buried for a few years before being recovered by the police.

I flew in and out of Dublin today and it looks like I have a project on my hands!! I'm hoping to get it finished in time to take to Africa in September and shoot some guineas and Francolin with it.

Kiri, I want to cry every time I look at that bloody thing.....

K

It needs an adjustable stock then you're in business

And cerokate it as well of course

That looks like an interesting project and very likely a labour of love.
I'll be interested to follow its progress.

Jeees

That thing is rough!
Fortuneately they didn't do a full sawn off job and cut down the stock. Will you get Purdeys to make you another set of barrels?
At least that way you'll get as close to your dream as possible.Given what you have to work with.

It will all depend on the true state of the action when we get it in hand and boiled off. If it looks like it will clean up half way decent then I will do a best sleeving job on the existing barrels at 29” and then may look at a secondary in the future at 30” with some choke for the high birds.

It looks like the stock was cut off then grafted back on. The fore end wood needs re doing so it will probably be a full restocking job.

Ultimately we are still not sure if when we clean it up we may need to just throw it in the bin, but I figured it was worth gamble.

Brian, when I saw it in the flesh I couldn't believe that someone would do that to a gun like that... If I can get a decent gun out of it then it's a great story. The tesco finest bag it came in is going into the case as the trade label!!

K

quote:

Originally posted by Fallow Buck:
when I saw it in the flesh I couldn't believe that someone would do that to a gun like that...

An appreciation of the aesthetic qualities of a Purdey shotgun is not particularly high on the list of qualifications needed to become an armed bank robber.

The destruction of such high quaility guns for similar usage is not unusal. One case I recall involved a pair of H&H Royals, with PofW stocks, that had been cut down and used on seveal armed robberies.

Best of luck with your reclaimation project.

Yeouch!

Well, if it goes any further - you now know that Jo can do wonders with the engraving!

Best of luck, that certainly qualifies as a 'project'!

Rgds

Ian