A different route of restoration, too far gone, but I liked it anyway.

[flying pig]

Well six months after I started this one's transformation I'm finally satisfied with it. Don't know why I liked this rifle so much, guess it just spoke to me.

Before:





After:



Sorry about the terrible pics and lighting. Two weeks straight at work without seeing daylight at home so I have no idea when I'll get some natural light photos.





Built a mid band/sling swivel combo on this one to save the thin fore end when carrying it in tight brush on horseback. The taper is so close its not even funny. I had to guess as I have no inside calipers yet. I think I got the inside taper closer than the outside. I had to leave the center of the band oversized and finish it by hand with a file, so it isn't perfect either but its fairly close.





First I did a bit of metal work on this one, the barrel had been cut off with a hacksaw and not even very straight at that. So I bored the chuck in my mini lathe to take work up to 3/4" and went to it. This is my first re-crown as well.

For the finish I used minwax stain under a zillion coats of varathane. I learned a lot about using varathane as a rifle finish through doing this project. It ends up being a beautiful high gloss finish that is very smooth but there are a ton of challenges along the way and its pretty obvious there was a lot of trial and error when you examine the stock up close. But this rifle was a perfect example to learn on. I plan on building a similar copy of this stock for this rifle down the road that won't have the comb and grip butchered like bubba did to this one. At that time I will be checkering this stock for practice.

The finish on the steel is Radocy express bluing solution. This is the second rifle I have done using this method and I love it. Great product, especially for those of us who want to do great things but rarely get the chance to dedicate a full day or days to our projects.

All in, about 6 months worth of work, somewhere between $50-$100 worth of shop supplies and bout 100 hrs of my time.

Range report to follow soon!

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