L C smith OOE grade 12 ga saved from the junk pile

[eastbank]

when i took my lefever 12 ga shotgun to post pictures on another thread. i also took this OOE grade L c smith 12ga #205126 out, i saved it from a pile of junkers that were being stripped for parts and after looking it over it seemed saveable. wood is very good, barrels very good and bores(steel barrels) are also very good, alot of finish wear along with dings-bumps-warped butt plate and covered with fine rust and a ton of dirt-grit. i picked it up for 100.00. after a good cleaning to get the dirt-grit off and soaking it in kroil for about a week total and useing 0000 steel wool to get the rust off and stopped, looked it over and found it locked up tight and the ejectors worked. it has a seldom seen safety, full back it fires and stays off when opening the gun, when you push it into the middle postion its on safe(hole in the safe exposes the letter s) and when you push it all the way forward its off safe and when you open the gun the safe is pushed back on. i fired four of my trap loads thru it and they fired and were ejected back about 6 feet together and the cases look fine. i may hunt it a day or two. eastbank.

 

[Merle1]

when i took my lefever 12 ga shotgun to post pictures on another thread. i also took this OOE grade L c smith 12ga #205126 out, i saved it from a pile of junkers that were being stripped for parts and after looking it over it seemed saveable. wood is very good, barrels very good and bores(steel barrels) are also very good, alot of finish wear along with dings-bumps-warped butt plate and covered with fine rust and a ton of dirt-grit. i picked it up for 100.00. after a good cleaning to get the dirt-grit off and soaking it in kroil for about a week total and useing 0000 steel wool to get the rust off and stopped, looked it over and found it locked up tight and the ejectors worked. it has a seldom seen safety, full back it fires and stays off when opening the gun, when you push it into the middle postion its on safe(hole in the safe exposes the letter s) and when you push it all the way forward its off safe and when you open the gun the safe is pushed back on. i fired four of my trap loads thru it and they fired and were ejected back about 6 feet together and the cases look fine. i may hunt it a day or two. eastbank.

yep, many years worth of dirt & neglect!
good job saving it!

 

[22250Rem]

Very cool.... I wish I could find something like that which could be "saveable". Would that one qualify as worthwhile of a restoration? It would be expensive and I don't know what it would be worth in excellent, restored, shape. Some guns get restored for sentimental reasons or "just because". I once had an old 16 ga. Iver Johnson Champion "restored".... Re-blued, receiver re-case hardened, some internals replaced, etc. and it's still not worth that much on the open market. But its been in my family since about 1940 and was my dad's first shotgun and I'll never sell it anyway. So if the gun is a "keeper" I could see spending some money on it.

 

[eastbank]

i,ll leave it as it is and make sure it stays in the condition it is now, i may take it for a small game hunt now and then. i do have several boxes of older paper shells from the 50,s that i will use. several friends and i take a walk on nice days for a few rabbits, but mostly it,s a slow walk with a lot of lies thrown in and very few rabbits shot. eastbank.

 

[Armored farmer]

It sounds like a diamond in the rough.
Congrats.
I'm proud of my little LC 20ga.

 

[bannockburn]

eastbank

Nice save! Good to find that after all these years (and with the help of a some diligent cleaning), everything works on it like it's supposed to and you can still get some use out of it.

 

[expat_alaska]

I am enamoured with guys like you that like to rescue and restore old guns like that. Takes me back along time ago, but back then when I was a kid, my Dad and all of the rest of his kind wanted to make them better than new. Eastbank, I do believe you want to make a classic restoration of this gun. Kudos! Make it look like it was before I was born in '52!

Regards,

Jim

 

[ulflyer]

Beautiful as it is....don't change a thing!

 

[Col. Harrumph]

I think it would be a shame to "restore" that one to new. (2 1/2" shells?)

 

[eastbank]

damn key board.eastbank

 

[eastbank]

double damn key board.eastbank

 

[adcoch1]

Beautiful old shotgun, I love the "working gun"look.

 

[Col. Harrumph]

I think it would be a shame to "restore" that one to new. (2 1/2" shells?)

...except that the wrist area looks awfully dark. If that's due to oil soak, then an acetone bath seems appropriate. But that's all this gun would need.