I called deer creek yesterday and they told me these where made about 25 years ago or thereabouts
Now that you have the gun in hand, does it have a proof date code or serial number on it that indicates when it was made?
What's the proof date code or last two digits of the serial number?
but yes the gun bein it sat for 25-30 years things were a bit stiff at first like the patchbox door was stuck but with a bit of working with it now I have it opening much easier now! so now for the lock at first it worked fine but I decided to take it out to clean the packing grease out, of course the barrel and the barrel came out really nice with deep groove rifling like they claim but back to the lock, I oiled it with some 3-1 oil but after that the lock the little tripper started slipping letting the hammer not engage well so after much frustration I took it back out and cleaned and degreased it and what tiny amount of oil was left I could see I put it back in and now the lock works very well!
Did you ever wonder where Deer Creek comes up with this new old stock after so many years?
I realize that they had bought out much of CVA's old stockpile of guns and parts when CVA stopped selling sidelocks, but here it is so many years later and they probably never even advertised those guns as being available.
I do recall hearing that a tornado damaged their business many years ago which took off their metal roof and caused dishevel, strewing goods all over the place.
That forced them to close down for a long while until they reorganized their stock.
I wonder if they had to put a lot of stuff in storage and that they are still locating stuff that they didn't know that they even had, or stored it elsewhere.
Plus they only advertised through their own print catalog and didn't even use the internet, it was sales by phone or snail mail only.
That may have led to them not selling as many items as they could have.
It's interesting to think about where those guns have been stored, and whether or not they acquired them from another vendor who stored them for a long time.
Maybe the reports of some rust on the guns are due to when the roof was missing before they could get a tarp overhead.
Someone had posted a photo of their shop after the tornado struck that had at least a partially missing roof.
No one would ever really know unless someone cared to ask them, "Where did you get those guns from anyway?"
Those guns could have survived a natural disaster!
They've also advertised Traditions guns that were discontinued.
When I noticed one long discontinued model that they had for sale, I wasn't sure if it was a leftover from the Traditions warehouse
or if they had some in stock for many years.
I've wondered if Deer Creek has a close relationship with Traditions which leads them to be able to get old closeouts
that Traditions doesn't advertise online or in their print catalog.
So that then when Traditions comes across old items in their warehouse, they offer it to Deer Creek first.
Deer Creek may have sold some to the Possibles Shop, or maybe it was the other way around.
Either way, some outfits have stored away some old left handed CVA flintlocks.
