Poor old No. 5

Attached are photos of an old "jungle carbine" I bought last year. For some reason I passed on a similarly priced, lightly used looking, BSA equivalent and took this old Indian relic. The bore is great, matching bolt, etc. Liberal application of green paint appears to have prevented corrosion. Upon getting it home I stripped it only to find decent metal parts but big forend trouble. Someone, probably an Indian armourer, had done a beautiful job patching the draws. Unfortunately the wood behind the draws had sheared along the grain and it was all held in place by the strap. Furthermore, the hole for the front guard screw was very badly enlarged. To salvage it I installed, with birch dowels, a chunk of walnut at the rear and drilled out the front screw hole and cemented in a 5/8inch birch dowel with appropriate holes drilled top and bottom. The original cause of the problems may have been a very poorly fitting forend with a .020+ gap at the rear. To improve things I extended the rear of the patch that far beyond the back of the forend and it seems to fit nicely now. I'd appreciate candid feedback on my repairs as well as comments about the markings on the rifle.

Ridolpho

Nice looking workmanship. Wish I could do that!

A pleasure to see real Armourers woodworking skills like that. I'd have plugged and patched-in the transverse screw at the same time though. Don't forget that the wood dowel that replaces the screw will do the job just as well even though, at first glance, it would appear to be not as strong.

Thanks for the kind words Villiers and Peter L. I couldn't and wouldn't even begin to try repairs like this without the incredibly helpful articles and posts by the experts on this forum. Not having much previous woodworking experience, I find each project building the confidence level a bit. I might even tackle that transverse screw, Peter.

Ridolpho