Argentino M1879 Rolling Block. Is it worth restoring?
A friend at work has offered me this rifle for “cheap”.
He helped somebody clean out a wet moldy basement and salvaged it from the trash.
I’m thinking maybe offering him $50 but I’m not sure if it’s even worth that.
It took some work to open the action and the hammer will not fall hard enough to detonate a primer.
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...r2010001-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...r2010002-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...r2010004-1.jpg
The buttstock is not badly dented and would probably clean up nice.
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...r2010008-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...r2010007-1.jpg
The is rust is pretty bad, especially on the end of the Barrel.
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...r2010011-1.jpg
Also the cleaning rod and sling are missing.
The stock has a crack that could probably be repaired but would require some filler where wood is missing
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...r2010010-1.jpg
The sight is rusted in place and cannot be adjusted. A good soaking in WD might work it loose?
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...r2010005-1.jpg
The finely detailed manufacturer patent marks would probably be lost.
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...r2010006-1.jpg
What do you guys think?
Give it a try or run for my life?
Remington Rolling Block in 11mm from South America
Attachment 16962Attachment 16963I found a Remington rolling block that was also in a basement, been there for years, was in NRA "poor" condition at best! There was very little that you could salvage besides the action.
I cut the original barrel off at ten inches, than bored it out to 1/2 inch, than used a 22 rim rife barrel blank and turned down the last 10 inches to 1/2 in o.d. to make a sleeve plus a hardened bushing at the rear. I bent the lower tang and made a new trigger with a sear to provide a very nice trigger pull. I also installed a rim fire bushing in the breech (could be removed) and an extractor was made from round stock for the rim fire cartridge. I cut down the hammer and made the scope blocks for a Lyman 438 scope. I made the stock and fore-end from a Calif walnut blank and sent the action out for case colors.
12 Attachment(s)
Refurbishing an Argentine RB - Part 1
Before we get started, I would like to be clear about the direction this is going to take.
The methods I will describe are not those that would be used for a museum restoration. I have talked with museum restorers (Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Veste Coburg, Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds), and their exquisite work is not intended to be handled by grubby fingers on a shooting range at temperatures ranging from the plus thirties down to the minus tens. The "don't touch it, it's antique" attitude is contra-productive if you want to achieve a shooting rifle as the final result.
We (if you are going along with this) are going to refurbish rather than restore - to get the rifle performing as well as it can (for its age and condition). To do what a conscientious user would have done over the last 120 years to keep the rifle in working order, not as a showcase item. This does not cost much money, but it does take time. Think of it as a century of maintenance packed into one operation, and it will be clear that this is not going to be a 5-minute job.
Every now and again I also discover a better way to do something. Someone may well chip in with alternative suggestions and better methods. So much the better, and the old saying that the man who never made a mistake never made anything also applies here.
And the first major mistake I made, early on, was to over-restore a rifle. Encourage by the brilliant examples of "as new" restoration I had seen on the forums, I gave one of my early projects the full treatment - metal stripped, polished and reblued. Wood stripped, dings steamed out - all the tricks. It looked almost like new.
And then the doubts started. I gradually became unhappy - somehow, it did not look quite right. It took me a long time to work out why. In the end, I recognized that, visually, it was an old artefact pretending to be new. I had not restored it, I had falsified it.
A word of caution: once your friends and acquaintances know that you are working on an old rifle, you will receive advice on how to do it from well-meaning people who, quite frankly, do not know what they are talking about. Please check here before trying out anything someone tells you.
And now to the first list. I find it very difficult to make an accurate list, as I have accumulated the tools and materials over years. I have to stop and reflect that you are, presumably, starting pretty much from zero. So the list will not be perfect.
These are some things that are vital to make a start on the metalwork:
A set of the best quality hollow-ground screwdrivers (or hex socket handle plus screwdriver bits) that you can find. Just one ruined system screw in an obsolete thread will make you regret using a cheap, badly fitting screwdriver. I have done that, and it is an expensive way to learn.
A brass (NOT steel) cleaning rod that is long enough to pass right through the barrel from end to end. I have never found one long enough, and made my own from a length of 8mm brass rod drilled and tapped to take a knob at one end and a wire brush or cleaning jag at the other.
Or you can put together shorter sections, as used for muzzle-loader rifles.
Attachment 122574
Several bronze (much better then brass) bore cleaning brushes for cal.45.
They look like this:
Attachment 122576
But by the time you are finished, a couple may look like this:
Attachment 122579
Which is why you need more than one!
A jag to take cleaning patches for cal.45.
Attachment 122575
A fistful of patches. Square or round - that does not matter.
Attachment 122573
A spray can of penetrating oil.
Hard-bristle (nylon or brass) brush in "toothbrush" form - or even old toothbrushes - good for cleaning the action.
Attachment 122572
Plastic boxes to hold the rifle components.
To this end, I strongly suggest that, if you have not already done so, you join a club where there are experienced black-powder or muzzle-loader shooters, as they have know-how that you will need, and can help you get the materials.
As soon as you can, spray penetrating oil down the barrel, if you have not already done so.
To do a good cleaning job, you will have to disassemble the rifle. The exploded diagram that you posted is going to be very helpful.
Another caution: if you make a good job of this rifle, you are likely to become addicted (like me) to turning hopeless-looking wall-hangers into properly functioning rifles again. It is so much more satisfying than just handing over wads of cash for an expensive showpiece.
So order the following two books:
"Military Rifle Disassembly and Reassembly"
by Stuart C. Mowbray & Joe Puleo
ISBN 1-931464-32-4
and
"Remington Rolling Block Military Rifles of the World"
by George Layman
ISBN 1-931464-45-6
And for this and the sections that are to follow - please post progress reports with pics!
End of Part 1
Refurbishing an Argentine RB - Part 2
Don#t start on the bore just yet. It will need a very thorough job, and there is no point in sweepinng all the muck into the action. It is better to proceed as follows:
---------- Post added at 09:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:21 PM ----------
DisassemblyNumbers refer to the diagram that you posted.
Note which way the barrel bands are facing before removing them. I am not sure which is the "right" way around, but I suspect that the U should face towards the muzzle - so that the U is upright if the rifle is standing in a rack. But whatever the theory, after so many years the bands will have "set" so that they fit best one way round, and you should preserve that orientation.
Loosen the screws (36, 39) and press in the band spring to release the barrel bands. Slide them carefully off the rifle, as any rough or rusty edges on the bands may scratch the woodwork!
Place the bands in a compartment in the plastic box that you have acquired for holding the components. If you have not got such a box, get it now - before things start getting mixed up.
The fore-end wood is now loose, but should not fall off. The back end is shaped to form a short tenon that fits into the front of the action body, and there is a recoil boss (4) on the underside of the barrel. So pull down the wood slightly and pull it forwards to remove it from the system.
This is the point at which you may receive a slight shock. Many old service rifles are heavily rusted "below the waterline". Or full of nameless crud. Please post a picture of the underside of your barrel.
Place the wood in a safe location (not leaning against the table!) and proceed to remove the buttstock. This is where you start to use the good-quality hollow ground screwdrivers that you have either acquired or are going to just as soon as you can!
The tang screw (7) holding the butt may be difficult to remove. Clamp the rifle in a soft wrapping (folded cloth) in a bench vice, with the tang horizontal and make sure that the screwdriver is applied vertically. If this all seems a wee bit pedantic, there is nevertheless a good reason. If the screwdriver slips when you apply the torque to remove the screw, then you will achieve one or more of the following: a) ruin the screw slot b) gouge the butt c) gouge yourself, if you are holding the butt when the screwdriver slips. We want to avoid any of that happening, so please bear with me if I seem picky about such things. Use these techniques for all screws that show resistance.
If the tang screw (7) is stuck fast, do not use brute force. This increases the likelihood of an accident. Turn the rifle upside down, squirt a bit of penetrating oil onto the trigger guard plate where the screw is embedded, and go for a walk or make a cup of coffee. Then replace the rifle in the clamp or vice and remove the screw. If it still resists, try the old dodge of tightening the screw (even if it doesn't appear to move) and then loosening it. This often helps to break a rust bond. If the screw is still resistant, then you can apply the most torque by holding the screwdriver bit in a two-handled tap wrench (but this requires enormous care to avoid a slippage). This really will work - I have removed staked screws in this way - but you have to apply heavy downwards force to hold the bit in the slot, and you will really appreciate having the rifle firmly clamped as described above.
When the tang screw (7) has been removed, place it in a compartment in your plastic components box.
It should now be possible to pull off the butt. As it has been sitting there for over a century, do not expect it to just slide off smoothly. You may have to loosen the grip of the wood on the metal by tapping sharply on the back end of the trigger guard with a plastic hammer, and then pulling, or both at the same time.
By the way, there are two things that you will never need in this kind of work - steel hammers and sandpaper. Steel hammers and sandpaper mark wood and metal. They are taboo.
If the butt is still "welded" to the tang and trigger guard, remove the rear trigger guard plate screw (9) and loosen the front trigger guard screw (8). This will loosen things a bit more, helping you to remove the butt, and is anyway the next step in disassembly.
Once you have removed the butt, put it in a safe place.
You should now find that you can swing down the trigger guard some way, thus removing any pressure on the hammer from the trigger spring. Now remove the front trigger guard screw (8) completely.
You should now be able to slide out the complete trigger assembly. You mentioned right at the start that the hammer action was very weak. So I expect you to find one or more of the following:
Rusted, broken, or partially detached mainspring.
General rusting of the inside of the action.
Action plugged by muck.
At this point, another picture would be a good idea.
You are now ready to remove the rest of the action components.
CAUTION: the two action pins are NOT quite the same. Maybe they were when new, but after a century they will have different wear patterns. Use a felt pen or stick on a label to mark which is which when you remove them. And to mark the 12 o'clock point on each
Use a felt pen to mark the front end of the elongated button (20). This is another component that is probably no longer be quite symmetrical, regardless of its condition when new. Then remove the screw (21) that holds the button in place. Place the marked button in the component box.
The two pins - the breechblock pin (18) and the hammer pin (19) can be pushed out from the RIGHT sight of the action body. If everything is rusted or the pins have been peened over a bit, then use a BRASS drift (just a piece of rod) and the plastic hammer to drive them out. To do this, lay the action body on its LEFT side on wood blocks so that the pins can be driven out without flying all over the workshop. Remove one pin, mark it for identification, place it in the components box, remove the second, mark that and place it in the box.
The hammer (10) and block (11) sub-assemblies should now fall out, but may have to be eased out, because of whatever was holding the hammer back.
At this point it should become clear why the hammer was so sluggish. Muck? Rust? Metal fragments?
Now is the time to make pictures, post them here, and stop for today.
In Part 3 we will get to grips with the barrel.
End of Part 2
Refurbishing an Argentine RB - Part 2
Disassembly
Numbers refer to the diagram that you posted.
Note which way the barrel bands are facing before removing them. I am not sure which is the "right" way around, but I suspect that the U should face towards the muzzle - so that the U is upright if the rifle is standing in a rack. But whatever the theory, after so many years the bands will have "set" so that they fit best one way round, and you should preserve that orientation.
Loosen the screws (36, 39) and press in the band spring to release the barrel bands. Slide them carefully off the rifle, as any rough or rusty edges on the bands may scratch the woodwork!
Place the bands in a compartment in the plastic box that you have acquired for holding the components. If you have not got such a box, get it now - before things start getting mixed up.
The fore-end wood is now loose, but should not fall off. The back end is shaped to form a short tenon that fits into the front of the action body, and there is a recoil boss (4) on the underside of the barrel. So pull down the wood slightly and pull it forwards to remove it from the system.
This is the point at which you may receive a slight shock. Many old service rifles are heavily rusted "below the waterline". Or full of nameless crud. Please post a picture of the underside of your barrel.
Place the wood in a safe place (not leaning against the table!) and proceed to remove the buttstock. This is where you start to use the good-quality hollow ground screwdrivers that you have either acquired or are going to just as soon as you can!
The tang screw (7) holding the butt may be difficult to remove. Clamp the rifle in a soft wrapping (folded cloth) in a bench vice, with the tang horizontal and make sure that the screwdriver is applied vertically. If this all seems a wee bit pedantic, there is nevertheless a good reason. If the screwdriver slips when you apply the torque to remove the screw, then you will achieve one or more of the following: a) ruin the screw slot b) gouge the butt c) gouge yourself, if you are holding the butt when the screwdriver slips. We want to avoid any of that happening, so please bear with me if I seem picky about such things. Use these techniques for all screws that show resistance.
If the tang screw (7) is stuck fast, do not use brute force. This increases the likelihood of an accident. Turn the rifle upside down, squirt a bit of penetrating oil onto the trigger guard plate where the screw is embedded, and go for a walk or make a cup of coffee. Then replace the rifle in the clamp or vice and remove the screw. If it still resists, try the old dodge of tightening the screw (even if it doesn't appear to move) and then loosening it. This often helps to break a rust bond. If the screw is still resistant, then you can apply the most torque by holding the screwdriver bit in a two-handled tap wrench (but this requires enormous care to avoid a slippage). This really will work - I have removed staked screws in this way - but you have to apply heavy downwards force to hold the bit in the slot, and you will really appreciate having the rifle firmly clamped as described above.
When the tang screw (7) has been removed, place it in a compartment in your plastic components box.
It should now be possible to pull off the butt. As it has been sitting there for over a century, do not expect it to just slide off smoothly. You may have to loosen the grip of the wood on the metal by tapping sharply on the back end of the trigger guard with a plastic hammer, and then pulling, or both at the same time.
By the way, there are two things that you will never need in this kind of work - steel hammers and sandpaper. Steel hammers and sandpaper mark wood and metal. They are taboo.
If the butt is still "welded" to the tang and trigger guard, remove the rear trigger guard plate screw (9) and loosen the front trigger guard screw (8). This will loosen things a bit more, helping you to remove the butt, and is anyway the next step in disassembly.
Once you have removed the butt, put it in a safe place.
You should now find that you can swing down the trigger guard some way, thus removing any pressure on the hammer from the trigger spring. Now remove the front trigger guard screw (8) completely.
You should now be able to slide out the complete trigger assembly. You mentioned right at the start that the hammer action was very weak. So I expect you to find one or more of the following:
Rusted, broken, or partially detached mainspring.
General rusting of the inside of the action.
Action plugged by muck.
At this point, another picture would be a good idea.
You are now ready to remove the rest of the action components.
CAUTION: the two action pins are NOT quite the same. Maybe they were when new, but after a century they will have different wear patterns. Use a felt pen or stick on a label to mark which is which when you remove them. And to mark the 12 o'clock point on each
Use a felt pen to mark the front end of the elongated button (20). this is another component that is probably no longer quite symmetrical, regardless of its condition when new. Then remove the screw (21) that holds the button in place. Place the marked button in the component box.
The two pins - the breechblock pin (18) and the hammer pin (19) can be pushed out from the RIGHT sight of the action body. If everything is rusted or the pins have been peened over a bit, then use a BRASS drift (just a piece of rod) and the plastic hammer to drive them out. To do this, lay the action body on its LEFT side on wood blocks so that the pins can be driven out without flying all over the workshop. Remove one pin, mark it for identification, place it in the components box, remove the second, mark that and place it in the box.
The hammer (10) and block (11) sub-assemblies should now fall out, but may have to be eased out, because of whatever was holding the hammer back.
At this point it should become clear why the hammer was so sluggish. Muck? Rust? Metal fragments?
Now is the time to make pictures, post them here, and stop for today.
In Part 3 we will get to grips with the barrel.
End of Part 2
---------- Post added at 09:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:37 PM ----------
Sorry, double posting!
2 Attachment(s)
Refurbishing an Argentine RB - Part 3
The second shopping list
A) An ultrasonic cleaner - no need to spend hundreds of dollars - I bought a small one for cleaning glasses at a local stores for less than 30 euros. You will find it very helpful indeed for removing rust and muck from the action components.
B) An electrolytic cleaning bath. No need to spend a lot of money here either.
The components are
1) a 6-12v DC power supply (battery charger) which MUST have an adjustable current limit that covers roughly 100-500 mA.
2) A pack of washing soda. Not caustic soda.
3) A stainless steel container (I picked up various sizes of pans from the local recycling center, a.k.a. rubbish dump) to be used as the "bath tub".
4) Frame to sit in the bath, on which to place the piece being cleaned without it touching the metal of the pan.
5) Plain iron wire (NOT galvanized) for the electrical connection to the piece being cleaned. From garden suppliers.
(You must never have any other metal other than iron/steel in contact with the electrolyte)
6) Insulating sleeves,bits of plastic sheet - whatever it takes to stop the wire to the workpiece shorting to the pan.
And, for the bore:
C) Two cal.45 soft lead round bullets.
D) Two fully-sized sample cartridge cases for the .43 Spanish Mauser cartridge.
E) Two sample bullets, preferably cast in soft lead, suitable for the .43 Spanish.
Electrolytic cleaning
The electrolytic cleaning bath is set up as follows:
The stainless steel pan (ex-rubbish dump - now known as recycling center!) doubles as the bath container and the ANODE of the electrolytic bath.
BTW. If I write something in CAPITALS, that means, for heaven's sakes don't do anything different or listen to someone shooting the breeze in the bar, unless he can show you museum-class restorations that he has done himself. I bow to superior knowledge and ability, but not to Bubba, who has neither.
The POSITIVE lead of the power supply must be connected to the stainless steel pan that is being used as the ANODE.
A piece of IRON or STEEL wire is attached to the piece to be cleaned (the workpiece) for the electrical connection. No other material shold be used for the lead that goes into the electroyte. NO COPPER wires in the bath!
The workpiece is placed in the bath, on some kind of insulating grid. to stop it touching the bottom and shorting out the bath. For small pieces, the plastic frames used in 22 bullet boxes are ideal.
Before making the next connection, set the power supply / battery charger output to about 6V (if it is adjustable). Turn the current knob down to zero, short the terminals, and adjust the current limit to about 100 mA. This is enough to test that the bath works, and to clean small pieces, such as screws. And you now have a safe setting before you take the next step, which is...
Attach the NEGATIVE lead from the power supply to the workpiece, which functions as the CATHODE in the bath. You will need to use insulating sleeving or sheeting to make sure that the negative lead and/or iron wire do not contact the bath and thus short-circuit the supply.
You can now make up the electrolyte. The solution must be alkaline. If you are using washing soda (sodium carbonate) as I suggested, that is quite akaline enough for the bath, without being dangerous. If you get any on your skin, just wash it off immediately. Dissolve about a tablespoonful in a pint of warm water, and use that to fill the bath. Make up as much as you need in that sort of ratio to fill the bath so that it covers the workpiece
Here is a useful tip: basically (i.e. not guaranteed!), iron and steel will not be corroded by dry alkaline material. What causes comon salt to rust steel so savagely is the hygroscopic action of the salt in absorbing moisture from the air, which then rusts the iron. Acids, however, are death to iron.
So the workpiece is only safe in the electrolytic bath as long as the current is flowing to maintain the electrolytic action. If you turn off the current you must remove the workpiece immediately, dry it off, and oil it, as the electrolytic action has produced a nice new surface that will rust extremely fast (overnight, as I discovered the hard way).
You can now get started on cleaning any steel or iron parts that will fit into your bath, with two exceptions.
1) Do not attempt to electrolytically clean springs, hammers or firing pins. When the bath is running, hydrogen gas bubbles will be produced at the cathode. There is a chemical action known as "hydrogen embrittlement" that can weaken metal by deepening the micro-cracks that exist on the surface, and are encouraged by stress and strain (i.e. bending a spring, hammer blow).
2) Do not bother with the barrel. A bath long enough to take it will be expensive in stainless steel. You can use plastic guttering to make a bath, and then use stainless steel rods placed carefully in the bath as anodes, but the resulting surface will have to be removed anyway to make a good-looking barrel.
The current setting is a matter of taste. Although I have read of others claiming to have (at least partially) reduced the rust right back to metallic iron by using a low current over a long time, I doubt that the result has any lasting value for rifle parts. The electrolytic bath will reduce the red rust to black iron oxide (actually a mishmash, but mainly the magnetic form - magnetite - the black stuff used for tape recording).
This is by no means a hard. stable layer - at least not if you want to get the job done in my lifetime. And this rifle has no bluing worth preserving, so it is going to be simpler to get it all off and reblue anything that needs or deserves it.
If the bath is functioning, you will soon (10 sec.) see bubbles rising, and the current should be on the limit. If not, gradually in crease the voltage until the currentlimit is activated. You can now increase the speed of electrolytic cleaning by turning up the current. At high levels the workpiece will seem to fizz, and the rust will be blasted off by the gas bubble to form a brown sludge. Since the fizzing produces hydrogen gas, it is not a good idea to use a high rate in a closed room, and most certainly inadvisable to have naked flames anywhere near the bath. So open windows are advisable, and take it easy.
You will have to do a bit of experimentation to see what produces satisfactory results. For myself, I am rather impatient, and after about 10-20 minutes I remove the workpiece, swish it around in a bucket of water, and put it into the little ultrasonic cleaner (I have a second one for actually cleaning my glassses!).
Turn on the ultrasonic cleaner, and within seconds you will see more sludge forming as the ultrasonic vibrations shake off the loosened material. This step also indicates that the magnetite layer is mechanically not very stable, as if you now put the workpiece back into the electrolytic bath and give it another "fizz", you will find after a couple of cycles that you can get some pieces pretty well blank.
It appears that commercial ultrasonic cleaning fluid includes tensides and alkaline components (like the "conditioner" used for blackening. But you can get quite a satisfactory result by using the same weakly akaline solution that you use for the bath. In fact, you can take the workpiece from the ultrasonic, wash it in the bucket, and pop it straight into the cold-bluing bath (or use paint-on bluing).
And just to demonstrate that this is not just theory, but really works.
"Here" as the television cooks say "is one I prepared earlier".
Attachment 122582
It is the barrel plug and tang from an Anschütz. No, not the modern 22 you all know, but a muzzle-loading percussion target rifle made by Veit Anschütz in Mehlis, Germany, about 1850 (the museum in Zella-Mehlis may be able to give me a more precise dating). When I got it, it looked worse than the RB. I was risking my money on something that was not even an acceptable wall-hanger. No drill that I know of could get through that S-shaped ignition hole, which was solid with hard corrosion. But after maybe 10 cycles, you can see what emerged - gold inlay bands and scrollwork that would have been destroyed by abrasive cleaning. And, of course, a clear ignition path.
It takes time. But I think it is worth it.
That was quite enough for today. We will attack the barrel in Part 4.
End of Part 3
21 Attachment(s)
It's surprise time! - Refurbishing an Argentine RB - Part 4
Refurbishing an Argentine RB - Part 4
Bear with me if we make a temporary diversion from your rifle...
Did you ever see the film “Khartoum” with Charlton Heston playing the part of General Gordon, and Lawrence Olivier as the Mahdi? If you did, you will remember the scene where the expatriates are escaping on a Nile steamer. The Europeans are firing back with Martini-Henry rifles at the Mahdi’s followers on the river bank, who are blasting away at them with 1867 model Rolling Blocks....
Meet "The Mahdi"
Attachment 122589
Attachment 122590
Yes, this is indeed one of those Egyptian RBs. Take a look at the finish - a century of sand produces a "soft-line" styling!
Attachment 122592
This rifle has Been There.
As to the markings, I was grateful to Remington that they marked the number on the tang (as mentioned in a previous post), where not even Ali Bubba could rub it off.
The markings on the barrel are mostly Arabic numerals, as the rifle was repeatedly captured and re-marked somewhere in that ever-dangerous region on the fringes of Egypt, Ethiopia and the Sudan.
Attachment 122587
Attachment 122591
I can read the numbers, but I cannot decipher the text markings.
Attachment 122584
This one looks like "?azara", which would mean "reprove, rebuke, correct" but I am no Arabic expert, and it may be Amharic. I have also heard of a marking called "the Mahdi mark". Unfortunately I can find no trace of such a thing in that definitive work "Remington Rolling Block Military Rifles of the World" by George Layman, so maybe that is another myth.
If any Rolling Block experts are reading this, and can interpret the markings, I would be very pleased to hear what they have to say.
This was the first time that I bought a rifle for the sheer historical interest, in spite of its poor internal condition. Basically, I paid for an RCBS die set and got a free rifle and a dozen cartridge cases with it.
Now please take a look at the muzzle.
Attachment 122588
When purchased, the muzzle wear was worse than on the Argentine RB. It shot so badly that it couldn't hit the paper at 100 meters, and the few bullets that hit the paper at 50 meters were going through sideways.
In a word - wall-hanger.
Now look at the side-on view of the muzzle.
Attachment 122586
It is strongly rounded off. Originally, the muzzle was about 1/8" longer, and the rounding was so extreme and off-center that the end was not even square to the bore. No trace of rifling in the muzzle. In fact it looked more like a worn-out shotgun muzzle than a rifle. The foresight blade is a replacement (I kept the original - it had been sanded down to a stump)
And this pic illustrates what happens if you are not very careful in removing a barrel band
Attachment 122585
"Honest sarge, it wasn't me, it was that Ali Bubba!"
At that point I had to make a decision - and the point of this excursion is that you, too, will have to decide: Do you want a good-looking wallhanger or an every bit as pretty but functioning rifle. That will determine how we proceed with the barrel. "Shooter" means a serious bit of recrowning. If you choose that option, I can help you through that too - the proof is in the pics of The Mahdi.
Your decision may be easier to make when you see how the rest of the rifle turns out.
I therefore propose that, for the moment, we leave the barrel on one side, well-oiled to prevent further rusting, and turn our attention to the action components. Woodwork will follow in Part 5..
Action components
As you are now busy cleaning up the components, it is time to look at the results.
If you have not yet cleaned up the two action pins, you need to know that the cleaning will remove the markings you have made. The answer to this problem is to mark the pins by filing a tiny notch on the cylindrical surface at the right-hand end, no more than 1/16" long. In this position, the mark sits in the hole in the frame, so it is invisible after assembly and is also not subject to wear. The snag is, you will probably need a diamond file to make any mark at all - those pins have a very hard surface indeed.
The block assembly will have to be dismantled, so that you can clean the firing pin. A firing pin sticking in the block is one cause of uncertain ignition!
As I already wrote, springs should not be electrolytically cleaned. Any hard rust should be scraped off, and the spring then rubbed down on the rusty sections with grade 000 wire wool (i.e. the finest you can get) and then oiled. Springs are not visible after re-assembly, so they just need to be mechanically clean, and saved from further rusting.
When you have got everything, including the inside of the action, as clean as you can, then re-assemble the action with lightly oiled parts (without the mainspring) for a feasibility check.
1) Is anything binding? If so, back to cleaning! Check for hard muck or fragments caked onto the inside of the action body. If there is no obvious binding, then
2) Does everything move freely throughout the complete arc of the block and hammer? If so, then
3) Is anything too loose? This indicates excessive wear. That would be something that I could hardly evaluate at long range - it depends on exactly how much wear and where. If the action pins are seriously worn, it will not be possible to fix this with kitchen table/backyard methods. But the rolling block action is simple and tough. The Mahdi had no significant wear in the pins, and no loose sockets. Remarkable after a century of sand!
But what it did have was
4) A block that did not close properly, leaving a gap of about 1/4 mm at the bottom and 1/2 mm at the top. Although it would have been possible to fire the rifle, every case would have acquired a skewed base. And yes, it would not have been a good idea from the point of view of safety. To think that some people worry about a couple of thou in their headspace clearance!
Unlike a bolt-action rifle, this can also be fixed.
Depending on results, you may need to post pictures of any parts that appear to be dubious
Cleaning rod
If you look at your picture that shows the action from below, you will see a plate closing off the action towards the front, below the end of the barrel. This plate should have a threaded hole in it to take the screwed end of the cleaning rod. It will probaby be a wierd thread, and the metal may be glass-hard, so that recutting it is a problem. Take the opportunity to measure it now - it will, be a bit of "see what fits" trial and error, I'm afraid, as it is probably no longer a clean thread - before the rifle is completed and re-assembled.
If anyone knows what the thread is supposed to be, please tell us!
You need to know the thread size (i.e. what is a practical fit) as the chances are that a replacement rod is
a) impossible to find
b) if found, excruciatingly expensive
c) the thread does not fit and finally
d) annoyed by a) b) and c), you decide to make a replacement.
If the test fitting of the action components is OK, then you have a potential shooter. If not, then post details - as you have to evaluate any defects in conjunction with the barrel condition to make that fateful shooter/wallhanger decision.
You are now going to have to face up to another decision: What kind of finish to apply to the metal. The condition of the rifle is such that there is no original finish to be preserved. So you have a free hand - it is your rifle - it is your decision. However, as always, I will offer a few thoughts for consideration.
1) Hot-bluing (but for a black surface, not actually blue).
As I mentioned, with regard to "one I did earlier", hot bluing can look very, very good. Unfortunately it can also look too good, and in combination with wood that is undeniably old, can give a "mutton dressed as lamb" effect.
2) "Struck bright" as the N-S skirmishers would say.
No finish, but everything polished. Then it would look like The Mahdi.
3) Cold blued.
This is the method I prefer, as with a little practice you can tone the result to look less crassly new, more like an original finish would look today - if it had not rusted.
Let me know how you feel about this before I continue.
That is enough for today
End of Part 4
32 Attachment(s)
Refurbishing an Argentine RB - Part 5
Just to remind you where we are going:
The wood on the Mahdi is a very fine, hard walnut (look at the rounded metal, and look how well the wood has stood up to the same environment).
Attachment 122640
The wood on the your RB is probably the same. But how are we going to get it looking good, without Bubbaring?
First of all, another little diversion...
Wood stripping
I remember you queried the gel-type paint stripper on the shopping list. You mentioned oven cleaner, and something about destroying the surface. You were right to think that there is some kind of hazard in this wood-stripping business.
I have expressed, on another forum and quite drastically enough, my horror at the thought of soaking old wood when refurbishing old rifles. Quite apart from the danger of warping, the use of a chemical such as caustic soda, and closely related chemical mixes, such as oven cleaners, destroys the surface of the wood.
I do not just mean that they raise the grain and make the surface a bit hairy. They are truly destructive.
You can verify this through a little experiment.
1) Place another natural hair brush and toothbrush in a container with a small quantity of the gel paint stripper.
2) Place the tips of a natural hair brush and an old plastic/nylon toothbrush in a container with a small quantity of a strong caustic soda solution.
In 1) in a couple of minutes you will see the toothbrush going to pieces in the gel paint stripper, while the natural hair brush is unaffected.
In 2) it takes a bit longer, but while the toothbrush is quite happy in caustic soda, the natural hair brush will start to rot. Take it out and try brushing, and the bristles will disappear before your eyes. But it would be a pity to waste the brushes. Just trust me.
Now you know why we are using gel paint stripper with natural hair brushes, and NOT caustic soda. Caustic soda destroys organic materials (wood, hair), which is why it is good for oven cleaners and clearing blocked sinks, but is death for any high-quality wood surface.
Surprise time!
Penny-pinching for packrats
"It might come in handy one day." If that is a typical phrase for you (as for me) then we are both packrats, with a cellar full of junk that we are reluctant to bin. But once in a while we are proven right (and we forget the other 99%).
So wasn't it a good idea to keep those old 3.5" diskettes!
Attachment 122637
If you bend the disk cover open slightly you can pop it off.
Attachment 122629
A small wire spring with a loop will fly out and land somewhere where it is invisible. Good packrats will catch these springs and keep them in a little box for the famous "...one day".
What intererest us at present is the metal cover. This is made of a material that appears to be a kind of stainless steel. It is only weakly attracted by a magnet, and presumably has very little remanent magnetism - otherwise it would tend to wipe the disk!
Be warned! The edges of these things can be very sharp!
Now open up the cover plate and use a plastic hammer to flatten it right out on something that serves as an anvil.
Attachment 122631
The bit with the holes is no use for what we are going to do. Use tin snips to remove it. You now have a rectangle with some very sharp corners.
You MUST round off those corners.
Attachment 122633
Even the two pre-existing ones. And the edges MUST also be bluntened around those corners.You can use a Swiss file, but if you make a habit of this kind of work, you will one day get one of these:
Attachment 122630
An Eazi-Lap - they are wonderful for very fine resurfacing and edge correction on lock parts etc.
What you now have is a home-made one of these:
Attachment 122632
Even if you use a commercial paint scraper you will also have to round off the corners (as I did to this one). If you do not, it is very easy (and I have done it) to gouge a line in the woodwork that is too deep to be removed by gentle methods.
So why not just buy commercial scrapers and round the corners off? Am I such a penny-pincher?
- Hmmm, could be, but the real reason is that you now have a scraper that has just the right amount of flexiblity for cleaning up gunstocks. And I have not yet found a commercial scraper that is so thin and flexible.
Attachment 122624
On as-good-as-flat surfaces you can apply just a bit of curvature by flexing it in your fingers so that it follows any slight dips in the wood. On curved surfaces you can pre-bend it for a rought fit, and tune that with finger pressure.
Attachment 122634
Just one further point - we are not actually going to scrape the wood.
We are going to burnish it!
Wood burnishing
I discovered this method while using one of these things to scrape a wood surface. Please forgive me if I repeat myself, but for this kind of work you do NOT need sandpaper. Scrapers are used by cabinet makers to give hardwood surfaces a highly smooth, close finish before applying shellac etc. If you hold the scraper nearly at right angles to the wood and pull it sideways, but ALWAYS along the grain, it will scrape off a microscopic amount. While bending the scraper between my fingers - to follow the curve of a butt, I realised that I was still getting a smoothing action, although the scraper was not cutting at all. The scraper could be dragged along the grain and smooth down the wood without cutting it.
As an illustration, here is an old Enfield butt (not part of a complete rifle) that was badly stained. So badly, that I actually had to use aqueous chemicals (hydrogen peroxide and oxalic acid) to bleach it out. But, nevetherless, I washed it - I did NOT soak it. Patted it dry and left it for two days. And then I applied a light coat of BLO (for beginners: boiled linseed oil and left if for weeks. Until yesterday in fact, when I got it out to make this demonstration.
Look at the raw side. Most people would be tempted to use sandpaper on this.
Attachment 122628
Look at the burnished side.
Attachment 122636
I have done nothing more than draw the home-made flexible burnisher (now no longer a scraper) along the grain, from the toe of the butt to the wrist (to go with the diagonal cut across the grain on the top of the butt). The portion from the butt socket is done in the other direction from the front backto the wrist. Always pick the direction so as not to go against the grain and the cut of the surface. Think of a bird preening its feathers!
Attachment 122625
You can see how the burnished portion has not only been smoothed out, but appears darker, because light is no longer being scattered by a "hairy" surface.
That is how I got the surface on The Mahdi, and that is how you should treat your stock. No tricks, just BLO, burnishers from 3.5" diskettes, and slow, careful work.
But first of all, we have to get the muck off. Remember the sergeant? This is not patina, this is not part of its history, it is muck. In the case of the Argentine RB, it looks as if it was kept in a room with painting materials. The drip marks on one side of the butt look like they were caused by some kind of solvent dripping onto the wood. In the case of the Norwegian Jaeger (I hope you are reading this, DaveN) the whole rifle was painted with varnish by Bubba to create a "treacle" rifle.
Both can be treated in the same way.
You need:
the gel-type stripper,
acetone,
methylated spirits (alcohol),
chemically resistant rubber gloves,
a surface that is not at risk (in practice, I put down a good layer of old newspapers on the workbench),
the scrapers
a palette knife with blunted edges, to remove the muck-and-stripper mix
a couple of rolls of paper kitchen towelling
a bucket or other container to dump the muck-and-stripper covered towelling as you work,
a large metal tray, so that you can "wash" (we are not using water) down the woodwork without making a horrible mess of the workbench, the floor, and yourself,
natural terpentine,
boiled linseed oil (BLO).
Most importantly, you need:
a place to work that is well ventilated. At this time of year, working on the terrace is not feasible, so I work in the cellar in short sessions, with an open window.
and
NO INTERRUPTIONS during the session. If you stop work for longer than a few minutes with stripper on the wood it will (maybe) penetrate too deeply and (definitely) dry off and you will have to redo the affected area.
and TIME.
Stripping
You do not have to do the whole stock in one go. You brush the stripper onto an area of the wood. I always start with the flat side of the butt, as this is simple to clean and gives you a quick feeling of success so that you gain courage to plod on and do the fiddly bits. Wiggle the brush a bit to rub the stripper into the muck. Do not think that you can now go away and come back later. Varnish, in particular, will soften very quickly, and then harden up again. After a couple of minutes, you will be able to scrape off the stripper-muck with the palette knife (you scrape the muck, not the wood!). Depending on the type of gel stripper (the chemicals appear to have been altered in recent years, probably because of ROHS) you "wash" it off with methylated spirits alcohol or turpentine while standing it on end in the tray. You should now have a patch that is clean enough to identify the wood (for DaveN). The palette knife gets off the bulk of the muck. Kitchen towelling dampened with meths or turpentine will take off the rest. Make sure the window really is open. One of the occupational hazards of old-time furniture finishers was getting high on meths fumes!
If this patch is looking OK, carry on piece by piece until you have done the entire stock. The piecewise progress (which you cannot use if you dunk the stock in a bath) is the reason why Claven2 wrote that you could do this without dismantliing the rifle. But if you have already dismanted the rifle, it is less fiddly.
When you have done the entire stock INCLUDING THE BARREL CHANNEL, sit back and take a look. There will probably be bits you have missed out and bits of stripper-muck that have gone hard. No problem. This is not any all-or nothing process (which is a good reason for using it). Simply go back and redo the unsatisfactory patches. Use the diskette scrapers for tight corners and curves.
When you are satified that the entire stock has been "de-gunged", give it a good brushing down with natural turpentine in all corners. You will now see how the wood will look when finished. Probably a damn sight better than before.
Joel: In your case, it is quite possible that the drip stains from the (presumed) solvent are still vislble after the gel-stripping. For these, and any other marks still remaining, we have to fight fire with fire and wash off the butt with acetone, as this will dissolve just about any solvent-based material that you will find outside a chemical laboratory. It will also wreck any polished finish on table tops etc. So use the brush very carefully, with the wood in the tray.
I would be grateful if both of you would publish a progress report after this - with pics - as once we start with the BLO on the stripped stock, we are starting to seal in anything that is still left in the wood.
That is enough for today
Wood refinishing will be in Part 6
End of Part 5
4 Attachment(s)
Detailed Help on Posting Pics
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jmoore
as you do not have the private messaging feature turned on
OK jmoore, I woke up!
Thanks for the nudge with the fence post. I needed that - I am so tired with this late-night composing of tricky instructions to lead beginners along the True Path without them falling into some of the holes I fell into. I am delighted to see that you are getting to grips with the Arisaka sticky now.
As to posting pics, I'll see if I can demonstrate it with this posting, right now. If it seems long-winded, that is because instructions usually just tell you how do do it right, and if anything goes wrong, you are snookered. I am going to show a bit of how it can go wrong, and how you can correct it, so please bear with me as I a spend an hour or so composing this
I suggest you print this out and use it to practise. In fact, you MUST print it out, because the extra screens will cover this text and you will not be able to carry on reading these instructions!
First few times, I kept on forgetting it all myself. It drove me crackers working it out again and again!
1) First of all, you MUST press the "Go Advanced" button. After the screen has hopped about a bit you will see that the white message box now has a menu bar at the top, with a lot of icons in two rows.
2) About 2/3 along the top row you will see a paper clip icon. Let the mouse hover over that, and the word "Attachments" should appear.
3) Click on the paper clip.
4) A box will open. In the blue title line it will say "Manage Attachments - Military Surplus Collectors Forums ...."
Below that: File Upload Manager - Manage all files that you have uploaded
5) From left to right you will see sections with Folders (if you have any) Home (which will show any files you have already uploaded - in your case, probably empty)
and, floating somewhere upper right,
a little box with a white cross on green background and the text Add Files.
6) Click on that box.
7) Yet another box opens, with title on a blue background "Upload Files from your Computer / Website".
At the bottom is a button "Select Files".
8) Click on that.
9) This takes you into the directory structure on your computer, landing by default in wherever you last quit the program. Any pictures will appear as thumbnails. If not, you need a computer guru.
10) When you have found out where you hid the pictures, click on each one you want to upload, and press the "Open" button at bottom right in the picture selection box. I am now going to do this with two pictures of the "treacle rifle" mentioned elsewhere. Each time I do that, a link is generate which appears in the "Upload Files" box. The "Select Files" box disappears and I have to press the Select Files button again to get it back, but maybe that's just my computer. Repeat this until you have links for all the pics you want to use listed in the "Upload Files..." box.
TIP: Make sure that your pictures have been given meaningful names. Otherwise you just have al list of designations from the camera (like I am looking at now), and when it comes to inserting the pics in your posting, you have no idea what's what, and end up re-editing over and over until all the pics are in the right places.
11) OK, back to the "Upload Files..." box.
Take a look at the list. If any of the pics have an exclamation mark on a red background at the right, under "Size", take a look at the size. It is too large to be accepted by the forum upload system.
That is just what I have now!
12) So now you have to press "Clear list" in the "Upload Files..." box. You do not have to crash out of the Forum site, just leave the whole "Upload Files..." box etc in the background.
13) Go back to your picture editing program (PhotoPaint or whatever). Save each file as a JPEG, so that it is compressed, and take the opportunity to give each one a meaningful name. And you can also crop the pic to cut out unnecessary background while you're at it. That means that the important part of your pic will appear larger in the final posting.
14) Back to Select Files. Redo from 8) above.
I now have the same two pics, much smaller in size, and the exclamation marks have disappeared. I.e. the files are small enough to be uploaded.
15) Press the "Upload Files" button. The files are now being uploaded. Sometimes the blue progress bar hangs for long enough that you begin to think it has gone wrong. Patience!
16) When the upload is finished, the box will disappear, and you are now back to the "File Upload Manager Box".
But there is a difference. The files you just uploaded are now visible in the "Home" box, for future use. Please note the warning at the bottom on the bottom line that "Uploads not ulitlized within one hour will be deleted! If you spend too long writing an epic work (like the Argentine RB series) you can fall into that trap, and discover that you have to upload the pics again!
At the bottom, there is now a section titled "Attachments" that shows thumbnail pics of the picture files you have just uploaded. Note that they are all preselected for attachment with the little tick boxes at bottom right of each thumbnail pic. So you can alter the selection here, if you so wish.
17) Now go to bottom right and pres the "Attach Pics" button.
Like this
Attachment 122639
and this
Attachment 122638
BTW. Notice that Bubba had hard-soldered the foresight block onto the barrel sleeve. Crudely and crooked. Yeuch! It took me a long time to fix that.
18) Press the paper clip again - Voila Bingo and Abracadabra! A list of the pics which are attached (and you are glad that you gave them meaningful names).
19) All you need to do now is to FIRST go to the point in the text of your posting where you want to insert the pic and THEN open the attachment list, scroll down (if you have so many pics) to the one you want and press to select it. A link now appears in the text. You have to go to "Preview Post" to see the actual picture.
20) And now for a DIRE WARNING !!! While doing the Argentine RB parts, I ended up hopping backwards and forwards between this message composition box and the preview. And every time I do that I see something that could be improved, want to change the order of text, which means shunting the pics around. In short, I have experienced a) that the "time-out" really does removes the not-yet used pics after an hour and b) you can get so confused that you lose the whole posting. When this happens around midnight (Murphy's law) it is very, very, depressing. Too tired even to be angry, I redid it all and was finally finished towards 1 am.
I have not discovered how to save a draught posting on this forum software , if the function exists. This posting has therefore been backed up on my word processor as I go. And I have been composing the Argy RB series on the word processor first, only pasting the text into the Go Advanced message box and adding the pics when I have it all together.
All these tips are in the hope that it will help you with that excellent sticky, with lots of pictures, about the Arisaka, which I know you are composing even as I write....
And why do I not have the private messaging feature turned on?
- Because I very quickly found I was being pestered by people who thought I was running a 24/7 free advisory service on Mauserology. And I remember how the old board became infested with spams and worse, until it became useless. The information we provide on these forums is supposed to help forum members at large, and I see no need to provide a private service as well.
Furthermore, I am foolish enough to use my own name. I have to stick up a fence somewhere, so I blocked the private messaging feature. Messages that are not intended for the general public could surely be posted in the "team" forum and removed after a while?
Well, that was a good start to the day. Let's see if it worked.
It did. Please let me know if it works for you.
No more now. I hope I have left Joel and DaveN happily slaving away over their bits of wood for a day or two. Off to the range for a test run with my cheapo Artillery 08 Luger, but that is another story...
:wave:
Repairing cracks -some comments
Good morning Joel!
Claven2 has described elsewhere the classic method used by antique restorers - a mix of shellac and wood dust from the matching type of wood. This can only fill - it does not have any worthwhile strength in tension. I don't think it would be suitable for long cracks in a piece that is subject to flexing, and the RB fore-end is pretty whippy. He has also described the alternative we have with modern materials - to make the mix with epoxy resins, and this is then a repair that has considerable strength, provided that it binds to the wood.
The trouble with the cracks we see here is that they are very fine - and full of crumbs. At least, it was on the dining table I refinished recently - crumbs, old candle wax etc. etc. I had to scrape out the cracks as best I could, using a hooked tool, before even attempting a repair. I have no idea what the technical term is, but it looks rather like a very fine C-spanner (the tools used for tightening the pedal hubs on bicycles) with a wooden handle - in effect, a super-fine lock chisel.
Speaking as an old experienced packrat, you can probably find a scrap of steel or brass plate that you can file or grind into a suitable shape. Something even better, if you can find it, is a dental pick, as used by dentists to remove chalky deposits from your teeth.
Claven2 will give you the full story for the epoxy method, but I would like to note that I am on the track of something that is possibly better for thin cracks - melamine formaldehyde (melamine resin).
If that rings a bell, it is because it is indeed the substance that was used in the Great Chinese Milk Scandal, but it has a serious use in archaeology - for conserving ancient and especially waterlogged wood, such as wooden ships. I talked with one of the staff in the Mary Rose exhibition at Portsmouth about this - it turned out he was a muzzle-loading shooter, and we had a great conversation.
It is a watery (in fact, water soluble) resin that can be squirted into woodworm holes to stabilize the wood and stop the surface breaking out. And, of course, it will run into the finest crack. That would make it a good choice for crack repair, from the mechanical point of view.
On the other hand, it might penetrate too well, and cause problems at the surface. A cabinet maker and restorer who has professional experience with this material is going to provide me with a sample quantity and some advice on how to use it.
For now, I leave you with Claven2 to deal with the cracks in the tried and tested manner.
(Claven2 - have you any experience with melamine resin?)
"Hey Patrick,
How about we proceed with finishing the buttstock"
- Only after the cracks have been dealt with!
:wave:
Refurbishing an Argentine RB - Part 7
Good evening Joel, and thanks for the pics.
Thanks also to all commentators for their opinions and advice. I concur 100 %. That rifle is now looking so good that a rebluing would be out of place.
After all, our aim, stated at the beginning, is to refurbish (NOT restore) the rifle to the condition it would have had if it had been probably cared for over the years, not to make it look like new
But I would be curious to see whether the meths actually removed any grime around the wrist. As mentioned, this business is a bit of trial and error. Whatever the result, you are now almost there - as far as looks are concerned.
Returning to the "taking stock" list of actions to be undertaken, and eliminating those that have been dealt with satisfactorily, we are now left with:
5) "The is rust is pretty bad, especially on the end of the barrel."
RUST FIXED but barrel needs recrowning if you want a shooter.
6) "Also the cleaning rod and sling are missing."
Not yet dealt with. I can't help you with that from here.
We will now undertake:
Finishing the stock with BLO
I did say that the re-assembly of the rifle that you just carried out was going to be a dry run - and very good it looks too!
To make a clean job of finishing the stock and to avoid marking the metal parts with the burnishers/scrapers you have (presumably) now made, you will have to disassemble the rifle once more. But as you have seen, the RB is an easy system to dismantle and reassemble.
The original reason for applying BLO to stocks of military rifles was not to make them look pretty, but to preserve them from the influence of damp. Stocks were processed by being immersed in tanks of linseed oil, maybe warmed for faster and better penetration of the wood, for as long as was considered necessary - days, weeks, who knows? Then the were dried again, for as long as it took.
Very, very slowly, over years, decades and centuries, the BLO dries out and hardens, and reaction with the air turns it into something like linoleum. This means that there is still a considerable amount of deep sealing in the wood, even though the surface may have degenerated a bit and that deep sealing is uneven.
Treatment of such wood with aqueous substances, of which caustic soda is about the worst, destroys that remaining sealing right through the wood and introduces moisture into corners which have been dry for over a century, which is why I consider such treatment to be barbaric Bubbaring.
We have avoided that, but still have to restore the BLO sealing of the wood for all surfaces, not just those which are visible - the BLO is protection, not decoration!
You have already lightly BLO'ed the woodwork for the dry-run pics.
When you dismantle the rifle, just use the burnishers on the wood. it will start to get smoother, and you will probably see a slight moistness appearing on the line where the burnisher is pressing as you move along the wood (always along the grain and "downhill" - remember the bird pressing its feathers).
This tells you that the BLO has not yet dried out. Continue the burnishing until you have gone over the entire surface, round all curves. I recommended at the start that you make several burnishers from the diskette covers. I hope you did so, but you have not yet confirmed it. If you have several of them, you can pre-curve some for the sharper curves, where finger-flexing is not sufficient.
Eventually you will become bored with this. No trouble. Just wipe over the rifle with a piece of linen, and you will begin to see the start of a sheen on the surface of the wood, rather than a shine. It will never look like the top of the table on which it was resting for your pics in the last post, and should not do so.
Put it away and wait a couple of days. Try again. If the moist line does not appear this time, then you can ad a tiny bit more BLO. But do not put it straight onto the wood. Rather use a cloth folded into a polishing pad. Moisten the pad with natural turpentine, then pour a couple of drops onto the pad and rub them lightly all over a large area. The aim is NOT to soak the wood with BLO in any one spot, as that spot will then take an eternity to dry. When you have lightly oiled the wood, leave fore a few days and burnish again. Repeat until you cannot stand it any more or are satisfied with the result.
Basically what you have done on the wood is that which would have been done in high-quality furniture manufacture in previous centuries. Except that the furniture maker would not have applied endless thin coats of BLO, but would, after the grain pattern - the figuring - of the wood had been fired up enough by the linseed oil, go over to the spirits/shellac mix used for shellac polishing.
We are relying entirely on the BLO for the finish on the rifle, so it is necessary to apply several thin coats instead, and that takes a lot of time. Impatience will lead to a sticky finish that will not dry satisfactorily. I am fortunate in having a small bottle of BLO that is more than 20 years old. It runs like thin honey, and if a drop falls on the wood, it makes a sticky patch that has to be washed off with turpentine. Your BLO will hardly be of such a vintage, and you will have to develop your own "feel" for how much the pad needs to be moistened with turpentine, and how much oil to apply in one go. As a guide, when you wipe on the oil, there should be a shine of turpentine which disappears after a short time. The turpentine helps to carry the BLO deep into the pores of the wood, and as the surface builds up over weeks (yes, I did write weeks) you use less turpentine, as you do not want to wash off the dried oil that is already there.
If you want a fine surface with that deep sheen that otherwise only appears after decades, you have to have the patience to do it this way. In case of doubt, take another look at The Mahdi. Your stock should look like that.
If you want a wall hanger, then at some stage, when you are satisfied with the wood surface, you will simply re-assemble the rifle and....
...hang it on the wall?
I hope not! :move eek:
I hope you want to shoot with it.:)
If you say yes, I will continue this series to describe how to deal with the muzzle, and how to reload for BPCR rifles in general, and your RB in particular.
End of Part 7
Refurbishing an Argentine RB - Part 8
Slugging the barrel
As jmoore has kindly reminded us of the extensive thread about BP loading for the M1871 on the Mauser forum, I shall not repeat all of the considerations discussed there, but carry on with the specific actions required for your RB.
At each stage I shall require feedback from you so that I can make a good "guestimate" for the next stage. You obviously have an engineering background, so I shall assume that you have access to whatever is required for what follows and know how to use it.
Slugging the barrel is a necessary first step before ordering bullets or bullet moulds. After well over a century, BPCRs can be so variable in the actual bore and groove dimensions that to do anything else can be an expensive waste of material.
First, get a piece of 10mm or 3/8" BRASS rod. You need a length of around 3'3" or 1 meter, so that the rod can reach right through from breech to muzzle while still leaving enough for you to hold. Make sure that the ends of the rod are faced off square, with deburred or rounded. edges.
Clamp the rifle vertically in an overhanging bench vice, well padded with cloth or rubber, so that the muzzle is resting on a hard wood block on the floor. Oil the barrel liberally.
Take a well-greased .45 SOFT LEAD round ball, as used for muzzle-loading rifles and revolvers.
Tip the ball into the chamber - it will stop when it reaches the end of the neck section.
Now hold the brass rod vertically between finger and thumb above the ball.
Drop the rod onto the ball.
Repeat, using a flicking movement of the wrist to drive the rod down.
Do NOT grasp the rod and HAMMER with it, as it will not move vertically and this is not as effective as flicking it down. The impetus of the rod does the work, not your arm muscles.
The bullet will be engraved in the rifling. When it is fully engraved, you will notice that it starts to move more freely down the barrel.
If the rifling were perfect from end to end, you would expect the resistance to remain pretty much constant all the way down. In the real world you are likely to notice variations, caused by tight spots or loose spots in the barrel. In particular, watch out when the bullet is about a hand's width away from the muzzle. If the muzzle end of the rifling is loose, the rod will suddenly shoot down and hammer the ball against the wooden block, and you will have to start again.
So when you are getting close to the end, lift the rifle up in its padded clamp a couple of inches and go very carefully with the rod, until the ball pops out.
You now have a soft lead ball that has been engraved by the rifling, so you can measure the maximum diameter (matching the groove diameter) and the minimum (matching the bore of land diameter).
If the ball got noticeably lose towards the muzzle, you need to make another check.
This time, reverse the rifle so that it is muzzle up. Use a plastic hammer and the brass drift you had for the action pins as a "starter" to drive in another ball from the muzzle end until it is just fully in the muzzle (about 1/4" will do). Then use the rod from the other end to pop it out again.
You now have an engraving from the muzzle end of the rifling, which you can also measure.
Please send me both pairs of measurements, and I will advise you as to the next step.
In the meantime - get the Layman book and order a 20-pack of 43 Spanish cartridge cases and the Lee die set. I assume that you have checked the chamber as suggested. Unless you have a lot of money to spend on your hobby, do not bother getting ready-made ammo - you do not know exactly how it is loaded, so after firing it you are no wiser than before. It is just an expensive way of producing fire-formed cases.
:wave:
452 in 43 Spanish barrel - NO
Quote:
Originally Posted by
killforfood
will my .45cal lead bullets work ok instead of round ball? Obviously the round ball would be easier to drive through but it comes down to being what i have on hand.
DON'T TRY IT:eek:
I have not yet succeeded in finding anything resembling standards for the .43 Spanish chambering. Any drawings that may exist could only be taken as guidelines.
The bore should be somewhere in the region 0.410" to 0.430" mm, and although the grooves are much deeper than for modern calibers, you have to recognize that this is nearer to a 44 than a 45. You would not try to drive a 45 bullet through a 44 barrel.
The groove diameter will be somewhere around 0.440" - 0.450". Modern handgun bullets are far too hard to be driven through a bore by hand, unless you use the kind of force that is going to be hazardous for your barrel. It will not be feasible to get the degree of upset/obturation/bump-up - call it what you will - that is required to fill those deep grooves.
YOU MUST USE A SOFT LEAD BALL OR BULLET if you want to get the groove depth.
A 429-430 lead bullet might go, but that would only give you the bore diameter, not the groove diameter. OK - that would be better than zero information, which is our present state of knowledge! But if a 429 bullet will not go down with the brass rod method, give it up and knock the bullet out again.
:wave:
Sulfur or sulphur? It all stinks
Quote:
Originally Posted by
killforfood
My only obstacle now is coming up with a safe way to melt the sulfur in the house
Sulphur melts at about 115 degrees C. Lead melts at 327 degrees C. So one way would be to use a suitable small crucible-like object (like the pourers used for casting lead bullets) floated on top of the melt in a lead melting pot. But hold it in there just long enough to be really fluid - do not overheat, or you will be generating some very unpleasant fumes.
As you can see Joel, you are going to wind up with all the stuff you need to do your own bullet casting and black-powder reloading.
Resign yourself to the fact that all this is going to cost more than the rifle.:( But...
... for the next rifle, it's already there:D
