Parker Shotguns.

When I was in college, one of my professors had a 12 gauge Trojan he wanted to sell. He knew of a man nearby that collected Parkers and thought he would carry it up there and see if he wanted it. Knowing I was interested in guns, he invited me along.

We drove up to a plain, brick ranch style house with a concrete block building at the rear. After the introductions, we wound through the house and got to this block building. The first thing you saw in a sort of foyer was a glass display case with several Grade C engraved S&W revolvers. I don't recall the models (this was well over 30 years ago). In an adjacent case, there was a 28 gauge AAHE labeled as previously belonging to Clark Gable. I thought I was impressed until we turned the corner and got into the main room.

Aside from full body mounts of deer, coveys of quail, turkeys, bobcats, foxes, various mounted fish, etc., both walls that ran the long axis of the room were solid vertical gun racks. I counted 128 doubles total, 95+% being Parkers....along with some English-made odds and ends. Also a few cases of shotgun shells, including some 8 gauge.

Until then, I had no idea that individuals actually owned that many guns PERIOD, let alone so many from one manufacturer. I know better now, of course, but was profoundly awestruck at the time.

The Trojan model is the same gun inside,,same internal parts as any of the other grades.
Dump the internals from a Trojan model on the bench and they are the same as from a D or B or AA.

One difference is the bbl 'dolls head extension' and the lack of it on later production Trojan models.

All the other hammerless PArkers have the same shaped dolls head extension to the bbl rib. This interlocks with the frame on top. There is no top bolting of the gun, only the one underlug holds everything shut.

On the Trojan,,early production has a dolls head but it shapped different from all the other Models. It is just a straight extended bar that interlocks with the frame,,no actual dolls head shape to it at all. A rib extension at best.
Late Trojan production deleted the dolls head extension all together and has a smooth breech face.

The frame of the Trojan is shaped slightly different than the rest of the models,,actually from not shaping it as much as the rest of the models to save time & money in production.
It's a simple process to hand file the Trojan frame to the standard Parker frame contour if someone wants that. Occasionally they do.

No engraving on the Trojan,,not even borders. The only thing is the hand cut 'Parker Bros.' on both sides of the frame.

The Parker barrel or joint roll can be quite easily removed and it's the part that the bbls pivot around and as such it wears.
It's not just a cylinder type shape however that can be easily replicated to a slightly larger diameter to take up any wear or mearly turned 180 to present a new face as can be done in some SxS's.
The part is a more complicated shape with splines on the ends to fit into slots in the frame and an extension on one surface that acts as the initial extractor.
I'm not aware of a source of slightly oversize Parker bbl pins, though no doubt w/ todays CNC and such the part can be replicated quite easily. I don't remember if Tony Galazan made and sold any.
We used to weld and recut the bbl hook on Parkers for off the face guns
Winchester 21's are the easy ones with the simple cylinder shaped bbl pin and available oversize ones for easy replacement.
Even then it usually takes some extra hand fitting to bring the bbls in correctly.

The Parker locking bolt plate that is replaceable is for fixing a worn locking bolt or plate itself. The over center,,passed 6'oclock top lever position is the sign of that problem and many times goes hand in hand with off the face bbls.

Look for the shade tree shim fix-it under the existing bolt plate to raise it a few .000" and 'tighten 'er up'.
A simple shim of aluminum foil is enough to give the feel of a tight lock system but it's just masking the real problem. Plus it begins to make the opening of the lever tougher and tougher as the locking bolt jams into place instead of it's normal wedge fit.
The bbls have to be on face to start with.
Those shim fixes can be hard to spot and easy to miss when looking over a gun. Kind of like the quick punch tighten up fix on AH Fox shotguns bbls.


** Old TexMex,,,,that's a VH model you have, not a Trojan.
..and that's a good pic of the standard dolls head extension found on all the Parker models except the Trojan.
Plus the wriggle cut border engraving of the V grade that the Trojan does not have.

2152hq:
Thank you for that excellent post. As said, I hadn't persued the project at all, but I should, since the parts are all there, even though the bbls are cut to 21 1/2" and the stock is in the rough. I don't know where ( 30+ yrs ago) the blank was acquired, but it has "parker" ink-stamped on it.
The forearm is quite fine, and it all locks up tight and proper.

I had noticed the dolls head locking lug in some pictures, but the gun I looked at didn't have one. The S/N is 205xxx if that tells anyone anything. It does have twin triggers. The "Parker Bros" on the right side of the fame is worn and faded, probably from being refinished, but I told my wife I'd like to think it was from riding in the crook of some old timers right arm. The stock showed just such a wear spot, and the checkering was worn down and almost smooth. (I had a mental image of an old man, wearing a brown canvas hunting coat, with a pipe clenched tightly in his teeth, holding it under his arm. Could have been my grandfather, but he smoked Salem's.)

Y'all are sure keeping me from just forgetting about it.

CajunBass said:

I had noticed the dolls head locking lug in some pictures, but the gun I looked at didn't have one. The S/N is 205xxx if that tells anyone anything. It does have twin triggers. The "Parker Bros" on the right side of the fame is worn and faded, probably from being refinished, but I told my wife I'd like to think it was from riding in the crook of some old timers right arm. The stock showed just such a wear spot, and the checkering was worn down and almost smooth. (I had a mental image of an old man, wearing a brown canvas hunting coat, with a pipe clenched tightly in his teeth, holding it under his arm. Could have been my grandfather, but he smoked Salem's.)

Y'all are sure keeping me from just forgetting about it.

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Hate to help a junkie feed the habit, but buy the darn gun or tell us where it is. I think there are folks waiting in line for it.

This is such a great addiction

I think the beginning point might be to read a book on Parkers. I think the author is Peter H. Johnson, but am going from memory.

I believe there are also modern repros from some outfit called maybe CT Valley Gun Company or something like that. They may be better choices for hunting.

tops said:

I have always thought the 12 ga. #2 and the #1 1/2 16 ga. were a little heavy but I once saw a 16 ga. on a #1 frame and it was really nice. I bet the 12 ga. on a #1 frame is a sight to see and hold. Larry

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It handles nice for me, I am not a real big dude {5'8"/190}...it would probably feel like a toy in John Wayne's hands. It's a DH and in 95% condition all original. Interesting story how I got the gun...a guy posted on another forum a few years back asking for some info regarding the value of his Parker. After I replied, the owner of this gun PM'ed me to ask about his. When I saw what it was I told him I would like to make him an offer. His reply was "sorry, I already have a deal to trade it for an AR-15." I jokingly said "I would have given you two of those for that shotgun and delivered them to your door" Six months later almost to the day he sends me a message asking "if I was serious about that two AR-15 offer??" Turned out we met halfway, he traveled alot for his job. The gun was in even better shape than the photos and when we met I had to ask why he was getting rid of it. He just said it wasn't his type gun...sometimes things just work out. You can best believe I paid dearly for the rest of the Parkers I own!!!

"....The S/N is 205xxx if that tells anyone anything."

Manufactured very late in 1923 or sometime in 1924.

The last # in 1923 was '205,150' according to the list I'm looking at.
I've used this list as a quick reference for gun shopping and it's always been accurate for me.

Serial # lists sometimes vary in print. The best one for Parkers is from 'The Parker Story' as it's from the factory records.

The original factory finish on the receiver, top lever and forend iron was color case hardening.
The trigger guard was a bright charcoal type blue,,the bbls rust blued.

The colors may wear off and the surface becomes gray or patina to brown from handling,,but Parker frames/top levers/forend irons were never originally blued.

Not unusual to see refinished Parkers. Many reblued both hot salt type and rust blued finishes.
Many were also re-case color hardened. Some w/a cyanide color finish, (and that's the same type Remington used after taking control of Parker in '35).
Some re-done w/a bone/charcoal case color type.

It's expensive to do now as opposed to 25 yrs ago. To do a 'V' or Trojan usually doesn't pay for the owner looking to resell it.
At one time it did, and many (many!) were redone as well as high grades,,and upgrades.
Some of those bone & charcoal re-cased guns are now 25 & 30yr old refinishes and have the look of a well preserved original.
Buyer beware once again.
..and NO,,they we not marked in any way to show they were re-done.
Upgrades were re-numbered to match known examples of high grade guns, BBl markings changed.
Then the factory serial number shipping records surfaced and got published,,and a lot of that monkey business stopped.

Dominus_Lex said:

Hate to help a junkie feed the habit, but buy the darn gun or tell us where it is. I think there are folks waiting in line for it.

This is such a great addiction

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Oh. Its at Greentops near Richmond VA. Their adds have been running at the top of the forum recently. Feel free to contact them if you're interested.

Edited to add: Well my wife told me to shut up about it or put in on layaway, so I called and told them to hold it for me if it was still there. I haven't heard back from them, so I guess it was still there.

Here's my one and only Parker left, a VH grade 12 ga, straight stock, 26" barrels, imp and mod. The one with the pellets in the right side of the wrist.