Hi Brit :- one of the farmers that I used to shoot for asked if I knew anything about guns, apparently he'd been gifted his grandads Midlands side-by-side 12 bore and one of the hammers had snapped in half,I told him that I may be able to get one, talk about silly money!! £400 they wanted and that was without fitting and vat, being a farmer he said no, I told him if he didn't mind it not being exactly a match to the other side I'd have a go at making one, the hardest part was the tapered square that the hammer sat on, I made it out of a piece of tool steel, silver steel, hardened it, polished it, tempered to a pale straw, polished again then cold blued it, the only thing I didn't like was the cross hatching on the thumb piece, it was a fraction deeper than the other side, other than that it was spot on, the bluing was a shade darker but ok, I tested it by holding a piece of alu against the breech face and dry firing dozens of times, spot on, the other hammer when pulled hardly left a mark on the alu, when I stripped it out there was so much shite and rust it was hard to believe, the other side was equally as bad plus a broken return spring, so I ended up making a hammer, two new firing pins and two new return springs, the pins I made out of silver steel that had been used as ejectors on a plastic injection moulding machine, the springs I made out of other springs that were to large in diameter so I straightened them then rewound them using a piece of stainless mig welding wire as a mandrel, Dave the farmer was well chuffed, I dropped a couple of cartridges in the tubes he fired them and said that it was good as the right barrel only fired occaisionally, he then said after cleaning it he was putting it away for when his lads grew up and that he was going to get decent secondhand one to "throw" in the back of the range rover, I told him I was selling my spanish S-BY-S two trig 12 bore, he had a go, said yes he'd buy it if the price was right and how much did I want for it, I told him £120, I only wanted a£100 but was expecting him to knock me down, he said yes ok as my gun fitted him better than his grandads so I ended up £120 for shotty £70 for making a hammer and £10 for springs and firing pins I then proceded down to gun shop and bought 20G over and under for pigeon bashing, got the deal of the week, somebody went in the shop bought an Investarms, he took it home, decided he didn't like it, the forend was a darker grain than the butt took it back , they obviously charged him/her a handling fee, and put the gun in the rack as 2nd hand, I walked in and bought it for £225, a £300+ shotty, took it home cleaned all the packing grease out, it had never had a shot through it, not very often I drop on but I did tht day....callie