Restoration of a .22 Short Rifle Mk II... found in a creek

[englishman_ca]

I picked up a beater of a 22rf barrel for an SMLE, the bore looked like the inside of a stove pipe.

I cleaned it out with a bronze brush wrapped with steel wool. Had at her with lots of Hopp's and got most of the crusties out but the bore still looked very poor, lots of pitting.
Not to be disheartened, I completed the assembly and to my surprise the gun shot quite well enough for a plinker and I knocked down all my tin cans. Punched some nice round holes in paper too.

Your proof of the pudding will be in the shooting. You might be surprised too.

Information

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[harry mac]

If it doesn't shoot, would it be worthwhile having the barrel re-lined?

[louthepou]

Thanks everyone for advices and ideas. Took the time over the past two weeks to do two things:
1. Spend the first week of the holidays fighting a cold, and
2. Spend some time during the second week to work on this rifle!

Things went rather well, but it took time. I cleaned each part individually. From the extractor retaining screw to the front volley sight arm, not forgetting the rear sight leaf spring retaining screw Everything was taken apart and cleaned.

The repair of the forend, around the trigger guard, went well too. I had to replace one small piece (probably 1/2" long), but it's now solid enough and should last a few decades.

From inside:


From outside, stained:


The bore was bad. Really bad. My normal cleaning rod (which usually goes through a .22 bore without a glitch) initially got stuck in the bore, because there wasn't enough clearance. So I began by plugging the muzzle and filling the bore with a de-rusting solution, which opened things up a bit. Then, I switched to bore cleaner (filled up the bore for a few hours as well). After a few hours of brushing, there was some rifling visible! And pitting. There is pitting in there, we can't really avoid this.


But, you know what? It shoots well enough to say: it's alive!






Further more, testing it in my backyard with CCI "quiet" .22 shorts (because neighbours and so forth), I am very happy to report that, at about 25 yards, we have rasonable grouping!

My "backyard range" (target is in the middle, behind the bird feeder - not the one on the right)



That was a great, fun project.

[browningautorifle]

I've seen ratty bores shoot before...worst case you can line it.

[us019255]

worst case you can line it.

Last year for grins and giggles I relined two 22 rf rifles. Both bores were a real mess. I suspect that in these cases they had been used to fire corrosive ammo and then left in the barn for at least 50 years. Bought the liners and drills from Brownells. Followed their instructions and epoxied them in. Both rifles shoot fine, and look good. Would recommend you do it. It is fun. The only thing I did differently than instructed was to bore using a drill press, not a hand drill. Found that the new drill tended to dig in when using a hand drill. The instructions indicated you should dull it a bit when this happens. I don't like dull things, so I switched to the drill press and had no problems.

[mr.e moose]

Great to see the results Louis. Hard to believe that after it's long luxurious soak that it turned out as well as it did.

[CINDERS]

A Phoenix really did rise from the ashes great job......

[englishman_ca]

I note that the soaking in the creek raised all of the dents and dings in the woodwork.

[BruceHMX]

The history of how it ended up in that creek would just be fascinating. I bet with more scrubbing it will shoot fine. Hell it's not doing bad now.

[Patrick Chadwick]

A wonderful piece of work, Louis!

A word of caution: any roughness in the bore will tend to strip off lead from the bullets.

May I therefore suggest that you follow the method I used for the "pickelgewehr" (see thread). Drive a lead slug (from a dismantled .22 round) through the bore, starting from the breech end. Measure the bore diameter (the smallest value you see when you rotate the slug in the jaws of a micrometer) and then turn up a brass slug to this diameter, less about 0.002"***, with a "driving band" in the middle that is about 0.010" larger in diameter and about 1/16" wide. Drive this through the well-oiled barrel, again from the breech end, using a yard length of brass rod as a driver that will not harm the bore. This drive out some hard rust from the grooves, saving save you hours of work with the bronze brush, and also produce a v. slight honing effect that will let the bullets slide through the bore without being ripped up.

*** It is vital that the slug cannot jam in the bore.