Trying her out

Over the next few weeks we took my bald, modified B325 to all our favourite places to see how we got on together.

We got some strange looks and lots of questions, but this was drastic and we had to get it right at this stage before the final finishing stage to make her beautiful again.

After a few outings Pete commented that I appeared to be leaning slightly to the right on some shots when I was mounting the gun and after a bit of dry mounting and trial and error, I realised that I was unconciously correcting my sight picture, the gun was canting to the left slightly.

When I attempted to adjust the gun in my hands / shoulder as an alternative to the lean, the gun pointed slightly to the left.

Out came the Shotkam ....

We did a few experiments with rules taped to the top of my rib (dry mounting at home of course) and then a few pattern plates, some more outings with the Shotkam and finally felt we had a clear picture of what my problem was.

Armed with the evidence it was time to collect Pete's B25 so off we went back to Greenwoods Gunsmiths, me expecting to have to leave my gun for further alterations.

The Talented Tim & Laura!

On arrival we were greeted with tea and smiles, an apprehensive Laura as usual (she really should have complete faith in her finishing work but she always says "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and only relaxes when she reveals her art and sees the joy it gives) . 

Pete was really over the moon with his totally rejuvenated B25 - in fact he had to look twice before he could be sure it was his lol.

Browning B25 B2G 12 gauge (restored)

We had brought the little Spanish S x S and Pete's hammer gun with us which were fixed choke and a bit tight for our kind of shooting in the hope that Tim could make them a bit better.

He looked at both guns and measured the bores and choke sizes and agreed to take them both out to something more practical for us.

He was intrigued by Pete's hammer gun in terms of its origin - to this day we still havent managed to find anything out from the proof marks so we hoped Tim may be interested enough to see what he could find out   

My turn

Now it was time for me to explain about my gun alterations and after a couple of minutes, Tim was having me mount my gun, he explained a few things, made a few small adjustments, and voila problem solved!

Did I want to take it away as it was again .... just to be sure....???

After a bit more conversation and a bit more mounting, looking at Pete's restored B25 .....the answer was a big fat no.

In a few more weeks she was going to be finished and I couldn't wait!! 

Thank you Headley!

A bit of a surprise for the start of the 2020!

We were in the middle of a round of sporting and we could see that the awards were being handed out but we were shooting with a friend so decided not to go along.  With all the learning and changes of guns, also due to the fact that not many of our cards had been handed in last year there seemed little point in the distraction - and anyway I was losing to Pete and our friend.

Later, we were standing by the fire keeping warm, contemplating leaving for home and one of our other friends Jackie said "did you get your award?"  We laughed it off as a joke and carried on thawing out. Some minutes later she came past to leave and asked again...

I laughed again but she huffed and puffed and beckoned to me to follow, turned on her heals and headed back to the office.  Still laughing I followed (secretly a bit excited and thinking it must be a newbie award or something) we approached Phil (one of the bosses) and she asked him. Lo and behold I had won a trophy!!!

Admittedly there were not so many ladies shooting sporting regularly through the year, but a few each week so I was very pleasantly surprised to say the least!

Guess I need to see if I can better it lol.

Finally!

Collection time!!

Well I could tell they knew I was excited.... greetings out of the way there was a lot of stalling and chatting so I did my best to contain myself - I was actually a bit scared too, I was worried the Monte Carlo would look to heavy on the gun and that the original figuring on the wood may have been lost somewhat.

Finally Tim decided to get the 3 guns from the lockup, I'm sure he did a bit of tidying or something while he was in there, anything to keep me waiting (such a tease!) Laura was making tea and we were going to need to wait for her anyway since she was responsible for most of the finishing.

Of course he made sure we had extensive conversation about the two side by sides before ... eventually... he very very slowly pulled my B325 from the slip.

A bit like Pete and his B25 the transformation was so great it took a few seconds to recognise it.

The colour and finish were fabulous - I had wanted to keep it darkish but I was amazed at the contrast they had achieved.  The two inlet sections had disappeared and the fiddleback of the original wood really shone through.  The enlarged stock looked so elegant she should have been made that way!!!

 

Browning B325 grade 5 (restored)