Mike, no worries about any kind of stock trade at the moment, just thought I'd make the suggestion/offer.
And I had another thought about Toppers and scopes pop into my mind, triggered by LaOtto's posting. Often the clamp-on extensions (set screw inside) can be inverted (so that the thicker part of the clamp is under the hammer) allowing a bit more scope clearance, but doing that may cause it to hang up on the barrel release latch when being cocked. This will prevent the hammer from falling when the trigger is pulled. I had this problem with the very first Topper I had, and my solution was to grind a significant bit off the latch and grind more off the lower part of the hammer extension until it slipped by the latch. In addition, as Tim points out, it is sometimes necessary to remove material from the upper part of the extension to allow enough clearance to avoid hitting the scope bell as well. I considered all the grinding and fussing to be a workable, but ugly looking solution, but not something I was completely happy with.
With my current Topper I also had these clearance problems, but grinding up everything was not an option for me because this one is in such great (like new) condition.
I will point out here that if I had chosen to go with a Monte Carlo stock and a higher mounted scope there would have been fewer problems, but I like to 'snuggle into' my stock so I wanted the scope mounted as low as possible. So after messing around with various possible solutions (and deciding finally that I'd just have to use a receiver sight instead of a scope) Tim introduced me to the set-up I have now.
He said to get another Topper hammer (I got mine from Tim, and I believe he got it from Numrich Gun Parts
http://www.e-gunparts.com/search_beta.asp - just put Harrington & Richardson 158 in the search box). He had drilled and tapped the hammer for a (?) Winchester (?) screw-in hammer extension (Tim will no doubt correct this if I'm mistaken). You will notice that it is a brass (coated) hammer, and you can use one like this, or a regular steel hammer, just make sure it is a hammer for the Topper since it is different than hammers on the newer guns.
This is what it looks like: BTW, many of the marks you see on the scope is where the previous hammer extension set-up struck the scope when firing.. or more often, when
mis-firing because some of the energy of the hammer strike was expended on the scope bell rather than the firing pin! (I never realized how dinged up it is on the end of the bell until I saw these pics - I must tidy that up!)
Cheers
Kerry
Pic 1 is hammer down, pic 2 is hammer cocked
