Thanks keavdog, Floki, Carlos and Lyle for your comments! That Python belonged to a close friend of mine and was given to him by someone else. It had lived in a cardboard box in an old country barn and looked like hell. Well, actually, it looked like this:
I suggested that Randy Kline could salvage that. We drove up to Jacksonville and left it with Randy. He later said that the most expensive part of the restoration was having the nickel finish electro-chemically removed. My friend, Joe, was killed in a truck wreck almost five years ago now.
As for those FALs, they were each built from a "parts kit" that had all the original military parts except the receiver. I purchased that and paid Randy Kline, aka "Sledgehammer", a master FAL-smith, to assemble the rifle. I finished all the stocks and handguards and Randy finished the metal. The G1 type shown above has semi-fancy French walnut made by a man in Michigan; I actually have a brief video of him shaping the stock, pretty cool! Three of them were originally manufactured by the Brazilian IMBEL company. The G1 started life as an actual FN-built rifle in Belgium. Its receiver was made and custom-marked to match the original lower receiver by Entreprise Arms.
Here's a pic of myself and Randy when I picked up my first FAL from him. He has since moved his operation to Jacksonville, Texas. from Burleson, Texas, where the picture was made. He is a rather large man, hence his nickname. But he is the absolutely nicest guy you'll meet!
And as for those shotguns Lyle...patience grasshopper. All good things come in time:
Winchester Defender 12 ga:
Mossberg 185 K-B 20 ga:
Fox Savage Model B 12 ga:
Pre-World War One German drilling 2 x16 ga and 9.3x72R rifle barrel:
I also have a Remington 870 Express 12 ga that I've given to my son Carson and I don't have a pic of it.
The German drilling was sent home from Europe by my Dad when he was there in WWII. I suppose it's considered a "war prize". Those type guns were often used in Imperial Germany by gamekeepers on large estates, enabling them to carry a shotgun and rifle together. My Dad hunted birds and squirrels with it and when we moved to Australia in 1966, it went with us. There he found rifle ammunition for it in an old antique shop. He took the old gun to a local beach where he and a co-worker, an ex-German Merchant Marine from WWII, flipped a coin to see who would try it! Later, my Dad went on a kangaroo hunt with some Aussie mates and killed three 'roos with the rifle barrel. One, a six-footer, was shot at 100 yards. Not bad for a non-rifle guy and with those flip-up rear "sights". It will never leave our family now.
