Speaking of Mr Dawe, we have another tease of my Remington 1894 BE restock and rehab project as it inches towards the finish line. BTW, for those paying attention, please don't imagine the lengthy timeline on this project is indicative of Chris' regular work. I purposely asked him to go slow. With a second gun in with Chris now and another one getting the full treatment from a smith in Ontario and a gun repair fund that isn't bottomless, I find I need to pay attention to when the bills are going to come due. LOL
Anyway, here's a nice pic I got yesterday of the beautiful chequering work Chris does. The pattern is pulled from a Remington 1894 EE grade from 1910.
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So I changed my mind on the Remington 3200 project and decided instead to focus on my 42 year old Perazzi TMS. I am awaiting a new recoil pad that was shipped to me yesterday from Perazzi Canada out of Winnipeg to replace the existing pad which I won’t be able to reuse after removing 1/2” from the stock to give me the LOP I need. Once it arrives the gun will be headed to CJ Dawe. We spoke twice this week about the work to be done. He is going to make a forend to replace the original and try to match as closely as possible to the factory upgraded stock I had installed. The internals have already been gone through and a new locking block installed and springs replaced.Then the gun will be off to Kobb for annealing before being sent to Lemieux for a bit of custom work, a skeletal top lever, pistol grip inlay or cap, a bit of engraving and then back to Kobb to be colour case harderned then back to CJ Dawe for the barrel to be reblued and final assembly before returning home. By then I should have a new knee and be able to take it out to the trap field. Figured I’d get it done and ready to go while laid up since I’ll be losing this shooting season anyways. Here is a few before pictures.
That looks real good, Canvasback. What is the inspiration for the checkering pattern?
Bill, Remington made roughly 42,000 M1894's graded from basic AE up through a highly adorned EE grade. (There are also FE grades but those are pigeon/trap guns and could be adorned equivalent to any grade, although they were mostly done similarly to BE grades). There is no ledger to be checked so the numbers of each grade are not known. To date, only about 50 or so EE grades have been located. I was lucky enough to be involved in locating and confirming the existence of one of only 7 16 gauge EE guns, the only two barrel EE set known to exist. There are also 3 Remington "Specials" that we are aware of. In 1902 when the first Special was produced they were listed for $750, significantly more than a Parker A1 Special.
Each known Remington EE gun has a unique chequering pattern and Chris used the pattern from gun #P138157, shipped in 1910, the last year of production for Remington SxS. Compared to some other EE patterns, it's a relatively simple design that we thought would work well with the grade of gun and wood. This gun will get refreshed CCH and has Damascus barrels. When it's complete there will be lots going on visually and we were trying to strike a balance.....not be over the top. Especially as this will be one of my working waterfowl guns.
The Remington 1894 is essentially an A & D boxlock. The only other American maker to use the A & D design were Harrington and Richardson, who only made several thousand, now highly sought after. Remington SxS are known to be finely made and fitted, similar in fit and finish quality to Parker. Fox, Ithaca, Lefever and LC Smith internals are finished quite crudely in comparison.
For interests sake, Remington also made and sold slightly more than 90,000 Model 1900, a simplified, cheaper to produce, version of the Model 1894. The 1900 can be thought of as Remington's version of a Fox Sterlingworth or Parker Trojan. The hammerless Remingtons were produced in 10, 12 and 16 gauge. Compared to their competition, relatively few 10 ga or 16 ga guns show up. It's the same for the grades.....very small numbers of the higher grades. Remington saw the writing on the wall for SxS as pump guns started to gain in popularity and stopped production and sold off all inventory and parts in 1910
Thanks for the education---I have to admit my knowledge of high grade Rem 1894's is limited---so I just finished an on line search and was pleasantly surprised of the quality of the high grades and the $$ that they command.
I can't see the engraving on the posted pics---will that be touched up or re-engraved? Does it have ejectors? Presume it is 2 1/2"?
Please keep us informed as the gun progresses through restoration. You have a treasure.
Bill
Thanks for the pics and background information, Canvasback! Very interesting.
James, Chris did an outstanding job on stock and the checkering! Who will you have finish your barrels in B & W?
I have a Perazzi MT6 which has the same striped receiver as your TMX---it is indeed distinctive and it is seldom confused with other guns in the rack at my gun club.
Have you given any thought to sculpturing the receiver that would allow engraving---might also assist the aesthetics particularly when case coloured---would the resemble a MX8 or Comp 1 receiver.
That's a real nice stock---is it a Perazzi upgrade?
Bill
Speaking of Mr Dawe, we have another tease of my Remington 1894 BE restock and rehab project as it inches towards the finish line. BTW, for those paying attention, please don't imagine the lengthy timeline on this project is indicative of Chris' regular work. I purposely asked him to go slow. With a second gun in with Chris now and another one getting the full treatment from a smith in Ontario and a gun repair fund that isn't bottomless, I find I need to pay attention to when the bills are going to come due. LOL
Anyway, here's a nice pic I got yesterday of the beautiful chequering work Chris does. The pattern is pulled from a Remington 1894 EE grade from 1910.
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