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Hey all, I read the guidelines and since these videos fall under educational materials and entertainment, it seems to be OK. Before the new format a lot of you watched them, so maybe I'm back!

My collection of old double barrel shotguns keep growing. I picked up two more in past couple of days. The top on is a Hunter Arms 12 guage. It's a higher grade gun with some engraving. The gun is tight and good condition except for the barrels. There is one significant dent about midway and a dozen small dents at regular spacing. Also there is an upsweep in the barrels. The coach gun is Hopkins and Allen hammer gun - model 100 I think. What a tortured life it must have had. The forend is not really a forend. It's a chunk of wood pinned onto the forend lug, there is a chunk of wood missing from the wrist area. The buttplate is homemade out of plexiglass. The action latch spring is broken or missing. And obviously the barrels have been cut. I plan to make, buy or borrow a dent raising tool to take the dents out of the barrels on the Hunter. I've got some ideas of how to take the bow out of the barrels. If I can repair the barrels, I'll clean the old gun up. I suspect I'll find some nice wood under the awful varnish. Finding forend iron will be critical in getting the old Hopkins and Allen shotgun back into shooting condition. The rest will be just labor. There is no way these guns are worth paying someone to repair. But I enjoy working on old guns and am willing to take on a challenge. But it's just because of their neglected condition, I was able to buy them at flea market prices. The individual parts are worth many times what I paid for them.

Thanks, Doc!

Eatin' meetin' (soiree with food).

SASS members, the Carradine brothers. David, Robert and Keith with Judge Roy Bean

I know I've not invented anything new but it was my first experience at raising dents. I went slow and easy but it was amazing how well it worked. I found that the tapered quill shank from the lathe drill chuck would drop into the bore until it hit a dent. I would bump it with dowl stick to get it under dent. Then take the brass hammer and lightly tap around the dent. The shank would loosen and I'd tap it a little further down and repeat. I went through both barrels like this and substantially removed the dents on first pass. I added one layer of tape to one side and repeated. I think I ended with four layers of tape. Perfect not but a vast improvement and adequate. I hadn't bothered to clean the bores and I should have. After cleaning, I found that the bores are in remarkably good shape with no rust or pitting. You can see a series of dark spots along the side of the barrels. These spots are where the dents were. Someone had taken steel wool and scrubbed of rust and any bluing that was left on the barrels and left the dark spots. I'll clean up these spots and cold blue or brown the barrels. On test firing, I discovered the left firing pin was broken off. I'll likely repair it rather than try finding a replacement. I have both firing pins out so I have one to reference. Investigation leads me to think the gun is a Hunter Arms Gladiator - an upgraded model sold through Sears.