Saved 1953 lithgow

[Demo]

This rifle was dismantled to the last screw to be listed on ebay. In fact some of it was. After initially winning some auctions and 6 months of haggling with this fool as well as waiting for Queensland Weapons licencing to issue the permit, it's a rifle again. The only part I was unable to secure was the rear handgaurd. That's unfortunate because it was dated 54 but it had already been auctioned off. Note how he has absolutely brutalized the action and barrel. Nearly every part is 50's stamped as is the case with these.
Was it worth the money? No, but was it worth saving the gun? Absolutely.

Information

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[browningautorifle]

Well done. This is the first I've seen. The thing with the action, for those that don't know how to remove them was to beat it at the barrel ring until it unscrewed. Sad, but you have it now.

[trooper554877]

Christ it makes me wince with pain when you see that sort of job done. Use correct tools correctly iwas told, which for that job i have!! Anyway nice to see a 53 back in one piece, must have cost you a fortune to but it that way Demo.
Why did he strip it to sell it?
Cheers
NED

[tbonesmith]

It's not the usual damage, of a twisted receiver with Stilson's wrench marks and nice clean chewed up bench vice indentations on the barrel, what's the guy done to that? It looks like he's been at it with a ball pein hammer, how would that help anyway?

[browningautorifle]

That stretches the metal so it unscrews almost by hand.

[Demo]

Christ it makes me wince with pain when you see that sort of job done. Use correct tools correctly iwas told, which for that job i have!! Anyway nice to see a 53 back in one piece, must have cost you a fortune to but it that way Demo.
Why did he strip it to sell it?
Cheers
NED

Ned that's what this bloke does. He breaks up good rifles all the time to sell off the parts. I only new about this one because a mate was bidding on some 50's dated parts so out of curiosity I contacted the seller and he unashamedly confirmed that he had broken up a 1953 Lithgow. I had to persuade him to sell me what parts he had left while at the same time win the parts already listed. The prick sent me a price list with every single individual part itemized. I probably wanted to save this gun more than I actually wanted to own it, if that makes any sense.

[Demo]

Here's a little 53 group shot.

[browningautorifle]

Very greedy Demo...but very nice.

[fergs]

I noticed the second one from the top has the old yello paint on it, i lost count how many of those i saw at horsely park gun shop back in the late eighties where i was priveledged to be able to walk around in behind the counter with a good freind who had freedom of movement in there. The amount of smles they had was amazing, where for $150 or even less you could pick the eyes out of them. Then somebody had a brilliant idea of stripping the rifles down and throwing them in a big bucket to sell as parts. The way they stripped the stock from the action was to leave the front stock on whilst turning your bolt in the butt which then split or damaged the front timber. Or they would manage to get the parts off and put a synthetic stock on the bloody thing. Unfortunately there was only so many of those poor little orphaned rifles that i could give a home to at the time!!
Regards and alas
Fergs

[RJW NZ]

Demo, you're a gold plated star in my book, good onya to going the extra mile there, it was worth every bit of effort, and the end result a credit to you.