The Long Branch that came with the Swede

[Aragorn243]

As promised, the after photos of the Long Branch. This was more an extensive cleaning than anything else and after taking it out into the sunlight for the photos, I see I need to do some more cleaning of some of the metal.

I replaced nothing, just wire brushed off the metal and cold blued the metal ends of the fore stock and hand guard. The but stock I did nothing to. The fore stock and hand guard I used one treatment of citristrip and two coatings of Behr wood treatment (bleach) on the rust stains. After drying it now has three coats of BLO on it and will get a few more before it's finished. As I suspect BLO is what was on it in the first place, the color looks the same as the butt stock.

Nearly everything that is marked has the Long Branch mark on it. The exception is the bolt and I can't tell exactly what is on it because of the black paint. It does look like a US ordnance bomb is on the handle which I believe makes it a Savage but there are no Savage marks that I can find. I thought that was the lend lease mark. The stock has a New Zealand acceptance mark. The metal parts have what I believe to be Canadian acceptance marks. I cannot tell what was once stamped in the wood just behind the bolt. Looks like it was once three letters with the first being a "D" or "O" and the second being a "P" or an "A" and the third being an "I" or an "H". The barrel is a two groove and dated 42 as is the receiver.

If anyone can tell me why the left side of the stock ring was ground off and the four large numbers stamped I'd appreciate it. I'm guessing some sort of unit marking.

The bayonet did not come with it but is a Long Branch so I included it.

A couple of befores:






























This one I'm not afraid to shoot so if anyone sees anything wrong with it let me know. Pitting along the wood line in places and on the stock ring but not really anywhere else. Looks to be old pitting, not from the recent rust attack.

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