Beautiful Restoration Done By Turnbull

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I follow them on Facebook - although I cannot afford their service (for various reasons), it still warms my ugly hart to see an old beat up gun brought back to it's full glory.
 
Yes, it's beautiful to see a worn gun restored to it's proper and new beauty.

But if you're a collector, it's kinda questionable because alot of the time, it's the original condition of something that determines it's price.
Kinda like adding modern sugar to a old vintage wine.... just leave it as is

And that pistol wasn't even in that bad of shape. The guns I think should be restored at the ones that are in much more awful shape than that
 
Restorations are kind of like botox and face lifts. It won't be original and you lose the character.
 
Talk about losing value I sent my Glock 19 Inaugural model F.O.P. in to glock to figure out why it shot left no matter what I tried. They called and said the frame was cracked and would replace it with a gen3, it's a gen2, and they would go over the gun. So now the only part's that are original are the barrel and actual slide. I mean now it shoots great, trigger is amazing but I have found those guns asking close to $1000. Now it's average value.Oh well, the gun was free so can't complain.
 
Turnbull's work isn't cheap. I agree with the others who said this wasn't worth spending the money for a "restoration." The condition, as found, wasn't too bad -- it appeared to be functional and complete, with honest wear and aging, but not abuse. I would just have been content to remove any active rust with fine steel wool and oil, and leave it at that.

I don't understand why the grips were replaced. They looked to be in good shape. Maybe the other style was more "correct" for the vintage, but that's nitpicking.
 
Unless it's suffered damage, I wouldn't personally restore something that's just patina'd, but I would totally let Turnbull loose on a newer production gun that needs an upgrade...like the crappy blue jobs on some new 1911 Colts and the repro 1903s. Not to say new blue jobs are always crappy, but they sure aren't the deep blues of 50+ years ago.
 
BigBore44 ... when I hear 'Blue job' I think of this:


Autocorrect wouldn't have gotten to, but African communists would've been all over you
 
Forget about money. You don't do this to save or make money. You have to ask yourself, do you want an old gun that looks like an old gun? Or do you want an old gun that looks like it did when it was new? If you want the latter, a restoration is FAR less expensive than an original in new condition.

Shooters are so weird about restorations. Spending $50,000 fully restoring a `57 Chevy in sad shape is perfectly acceptable. High end British bespoke guns like $100,000 H&H and Westley-Richards would get restored all the time but somehow doing so with a $500 gun is unthinkable.


Wisco said:
Not to say new blue jobs are always crappy, but they sure aren't the deep blues of 50+ years ago.
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Has nothing to do with the bluing. It's all in the polishing.
 
Trumbull does amazing work.

People should do with their property and money whatever they want, within the law.

But, in my opinion, that’s putting lipstick on a piglet.

To each, his own.
 
BigBore44 said:
Autocorrect would have gotten me for sure on that one.
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I can’t even begin tell you in mixed company some of things my autocorrect has automatically picked up on and changed from innocuous to obscene. Without a doubt, I am consistently a very foul texter and I have to type, read, reread, post, and probably look again real quick when posting publicly.
 
CraigC, the controversy with restoring guns, is when you re-blue them or clean the rust off, you are removing the original surface that someone held and saw in their hand over 100 years ago. So you're getting something original that has acculmated dents and scratches, and then you take it off and it's just the same metal from the original gun, not the same surface.
But you're right, why is it we look at a car that's been repainted without a glance, but when a gun has been, it doesn't feel as right? I guess because cars are so much more expensive, and their purpose is perhaps even more ultilitarian than guns are, it doesn't feel like much of a big deal.
 
CraigC said:
Shooters are so weird about restorations. Spending $50,000 fully restoring a `57 Chevy in sad shape is perfectly acceptable. High end British bespoke guns like $100,000 H&H and Westley-Richards would get restored all the time but somehow doing so with a $500 gun is unthinkable.
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I think the difference is a $50k resto on a ‘57 chevy “can” actually net you a hefty profit. But a firearms resto (in the eyes of most owners) reduces the value. It may make it worth more than it was originally. But there’s a limit.

At the end of the day, I agree with you. It’s not done for profit. It’s the owner’s money and if they want to have a beautiful firearm restoration, they can certainly pay to have one.
 
While I feel some guns should be kept all original there are millions of good restoration candidates out there. Although it's admittedly expensive a lot of folks feel that it's worth it. The crew at Turnbulls is nationally recognized as doing some of the best restoration work available. A lot of what they do was once considered almost a "lost art" because all the older craftsmen were dying off and nobody was stepping in to fill their shoes. Some of their case hardening, bluing, and polishing methods are "outmoded" in terms of modern economic feasibility because they are too labor intensive but it's the only way to duplicate those classic, beautiful, old school processes used by the master craftsmen of old. Thus the increased cost. An old, collectible, gun in good original condition I'd leave as is; but lots of those, collectible old guns have suffered from a lot of use and/or abuse or have been neglected for decades. A professional restoration using period correct methods would be the best thing that ever happened to that gun and it might be expensive but the results are stunning. I drive by their shop several times a year and have been through their showroom a few times and it is mind blowing to see some of their work in person. It's like stepping into a time capsule seeing firearms dating back into the 1800's that look like the day they were made. Not to mention that those classic bluing and case hardening methods also look fantastic when applied to more modern firearms.
 
hso said:
I get Doug Turnbull's newsletter because of the pictures of the remarkable firearms he restores. Here's an example I thought some of you would like to see.


View attachment 830215


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They did a total restore of an original 1911 [ NOT an A1 ] issued in 1918 to the Marines, and it was such a mess that all it could do was shoot.

When Doug brought it out from the backroom and presented it to me,I laughed and told them that it was a good joke.

And to bring out my actual gun,they had to make me check the serial numbers to realize that the joke was on me.

Sadly I sold it [ for no good reason ] and it sure was a beauty,and of course it still shot well,other than the original sights.
 
I had Turnbull do a restoration (and upgrade) on an A.H. Fox 20GA SxS Sterlingworth that had been in my family since just after WW1 (3 generations).

My dad, brother & sisters and I all learned to shoot with this gun. To make it a "youth" model my grandfather sawed a chuck out of the stock which was later replaced when you grew up. It was his and my father's duck gun, spending countless hrs in the salt-marshes where I grew up (RI). To say it had seen better days would have been an understatement.

6 months and $3750 later it came back as a brand new "A" Grade with engraving and French walnut. Gorgeous gun that will hopefully serve another 3 generations. No more salt marshes, but quail huts on decent days....
 
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