If it needs a stock and forearm, it's not worth much. If it is a boxlock with fluid steel barrels, fully functional and OK'd by an experienced gunsmith, it would be worth $200+ as a shooter. If it has laminated barrels and side hammers, it might bring $125-$150 as a mantle decoration.
American Gun Company Double Barrel Shotgun Serial Numbers. 640 x 480 jpeg 18kB. KNICKERBOCKER dbl 12ga. INFO?| The Firearms Forum - The.
Like any other machine 80+ years old, parts are where you find them. Your local gunsmith can probably find wood that will fit or can be made to fit. To be a decorator, it would be enough to repair the existing stocks with Elmer's glue and wood filler if that is possible. What it's worth and what it will cost to buy one are two different things.
I have a Browning Citori skeet, Baikal 27em-ic-m and an Italian made fausti, can't hit anything with the fausti due to the fact it doesn't fit. The baikal and the browning have exactly the same point characteristics. The baik al can be bought for as little as $300 if you look around. But It's worth at least as much as a well worn Browning to me.
That could be as much as $700. I wouldn't want to try to replace it with another cheep over and under. I think the value is great. Buy one and do as I did, polish the metal and have it reblued as the finish still shows some imperfections out of the box, and refinish the walnut wood. Mine will soon look like a gun equal in quality to my Browning.
Don't be afraid to buy one! Answer I completely disagree with the guy who said he would rather have a Baikal than a Browning. Polish the parts - he's got to be kidding. This is an admission of poor craftsmanship to begin with. Reblue it - I can't believe what I'm readimg. Heck, one might as well get milling tools and make the gun from scratch.
I would rather have a Browning on whick all the bluing was worn off, the stock was scarred and worn and had been shot 20,000 times, than a wagon load of Baikals. As far as I am concerned they would just be scrap iron anyway.
Answer The Baikal is worth just as much as any good shotgun in the $500 range. I've been out numerous times with bird hunters with multi-thousand dollar Brownings or others and they missfire or otherwise fail to preform. I've looked at $4000 Brownings that had grind marks and other groves in the chambers and parts. I recently purchased a Remington 870 express magnum which wouldn't even eject the shells on the first firing. Remington Company wouldn't even give me a replacement barrel but made me send the brand new shotgun back to the factory for reboreing the burrs out of the shell chamber.
I had to wait months for the work and didn't have the gun for the upcoming bird and waterfowl seasons. Arizona law prevented me from just simply taking the worthless gun back to the store. All the manufacturiers are cost cutting and I just don't expect any company to give you the quality product that they previously manufactured and sold. In fact I don't know any hunter that doesn't carry one or two back-up guns, shotgun or rifle, because of the possibility that the primary gun will fail during the hunt. Jack Answer Response: I have a Remington 870 Wingmaster which I purchased as a finantially desparate college student in 1962 - I hunted with it in sleet, rain, snow and fair weather. I drug it through the mud sneaking up on ducks.
Never has it misfunctioned. Now I hear that Remington has stooped to importing Baikals and selling in under the name 'Spartan'.
So, I can chalk off Remington. Here's the deal, it seems to me.The profit motive and volume sales have taken over in the U.S.
And most of the companies are willing to sacrificeintegrity. Sad.I really question that you have seen 'numerous' guns bearing the names of high integrity quality manufacturers like Browning fail. I have hunted with passion for 50 years and have never witnessed any of these fail. I know that it must happen on occasion but my experience tells me that this is rare. On the other hand Scheels salesman in Sioux Falls told me that they have quit handeling Baikal because of such a high rate of return and related function problems - he guessed it was at least ten percent. Another gun shop verified this. These are guys that know guns up one side and down the other.
This is reality, not based on what I wish to be true. I 'wish' that the Baikals had functioned properly.None did. I was so hoping to get an inexpensive double that I could use as a dependable workhorse. Just add up the negatives. Varnish that wears right down to the wood in one season, mechanical malfunctions galore, inferrior bluing, action opening stiffness - give me a break. It's crazy to compare this quality of gun to a Browning, Weatherby, Miroku (sp) SKB, Ithica or other gun of high quality. Answer I bought a Spartan 20 gauge o/u because i had heard that it was a solidly made shotgun.
It is an entry level over and under but i have to say that i am very impressed with the performance of the gun. I shot it all this 2005-season for dove and quail.
I have never had it malfunction and it fits and points well for me. I don't worry about scratching it, dropping it or getting it wet because i know it is the least expensive shotgun that i own. I really do enjoy shooting it and it has become my favorite rough terrain shotgun.I have a Beretta 20 gauge Eureka 391 gold that i love but i really hate to carry it in really rough areas because it is so nice looking that i don't want to nick it up.
I know, shotguns are made for shooting in all conditions but i would like it to stay pretty for a while longer. The Spartan (Baikal) is a decent, shotgun for the money and for me, it's been reliable. The fit of the wood to the metal is pretty darn good. No, it will never be a Browning, but a Browning will never be a Perazzi.
Baikal/Spartan was made to be an entry level, good value, decently made shotgun for the money and it is. Answer I am an avid shooter who has shot most shotguns in the $2000 and under range. I have a Remington 870 that I bought second hand fifteen years ago. It has never failed or misfired although not many shotguns look rougher. I recently bought a baikal o/u. Myself and five friends got together to shoot some clays a few days later. Everyone shot the baikal to try it out.
There were Browning, Benelli, Remington and Winchester owners in our bunch. In about three hours of shooting we ran over 200 rounds through the Baikal without one problem. I paid $300 used for the Baikal, one of my friends (a benelli man)offered me $350 before the day was over. I wouldn't say it's the best gun I've ever shot but for the price I am well pleased and I believe I will keep the baikal as a good backup gun to my Remington.
I just don't understand the infatuation with beautiful guns. I see my guns as tools for hunting and I keep them in great functioning shape. That doesn't mean they are without scratches and the way I see it, if after owning a gun for two or three seasons it doesn't show some wear then there must have been some reason I didn't use it much.
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Personally, you can keep your pretty gun out of the brush and elements but I'm not going to share any meat! Answer My Baikal worked fine with trap loads - field loads were a problem, especially in cold weather. Second barrel just sucked air.
Answer In my opinion, a beautiful gun is not one free from the wear and scarring of normal hunting; this rather gives the gun character that carries with it a thousand memories.I like to buy a used gun rather than new for this reason.I wouldn't trade my guns for new expressly for this reason. It is difficult to express what makes a gun beautiful - but like the judge who was asked to define pornography, I may not be able to define it but I sure know it when I see it.Having said this, I heartily agree with the idea that guns are meant to be used. There is, in our materialistic society a sort of worship of material things for their own sake. So, men will buy a new multi-thousand dollar gun to worship, then buy a cheap gun to hunt with. This is completely beyond the scope of my understanding. Material things are destined to perish - it is the eternal that is imperishible. Men spend their lives acquiring and acquiring that which they cannot in the end keep.
I love hunting and fishing, but I see all this as gifts from Gods hand. I really enjoy the equipment, but in the end, its only stuff.
How many do you know that think that satisfaction they yearn for will finally somehow be realized with the next gun purchase or whateve. If I just had a then I would really have what I want.
This is all illusion. I used to run this circle myself, until I met Christ.
Some shotguns were made for Sears Roebuck under contract with Winchester. A superposed made in 1970 would probably have been made overseas, as American craftsmanship had priced itself out of the market but for the very rich. If it's Japanese made, Miroku or others, you've got a gem. (C heck proof marks for kanji, etc.) If it's Spanish made, it's a pig in a poke; some really good guns come from there, but their metallurgy was suspect in the postwar period in the more economic varieties. If Italian made, another possible gem.
Unlikely that the Turks were exporting o/u's in the 70s, though they make some good ones, and Russia was still Commie back then, so Sears Roebuck would probably have not been trading with them, though two barrel shotguns (side by side and o/u) were the only permissable firearm for tens of thousands of Igors in the Street. And they made a lot of them. Hunting was still a recognized activity under the commissars. An acquaintence of mine who took a duck hunting trip to the famed marshes of Mother Russia in the post-Munich days almost had his own guns taken away by German airport police during a stopover; disassembled double guns checked through by wealthy Americans evidently rang their anti-Arab alarms.
He never could get over the irony that once behind the (fast rusting) Iron Curtain, nobody gave him a second glance crossing Red Square with a shotgun case in his hands. Kind of like it used to be in Amuricuh.