Since we are all gun nuts here I thought you guys would enjoy my story of restoring an old family shotgun. It is a family heirloom now and I wanted to make sure that it was back in excellent shape for generations to come.
I restored my Grandfather’s then my Dad’s Remington Sportsman 58. The Sportsman 58 was one of the very first if not the first Semi Automatic shotgun Remington ever produced. It was only made for 2 or 3 years before it was changed to the Model 1100. My Dad passed it on to my brother and I to duck hunt with. It ended up being in my possession. Eventually I passed it on to my son to duck hunt with. After decades of hard use hunting and some neglect it was much worse for the wear. It looked bad but it still shot good and it has killed many, many duck over the years.
My Dad passed away in 2019 from Parkinson’s Disease. Before he passed we knew that he didn’t have much longer on this earth. I decided to restore it before he passed away and show it to him on father’s day in 2018 fully restored. The shotgun was very sentimental to him and he wanted to restore it many years ago. He never really had the gunsmithing knowledge or proper supplies to do the job properly. My dad had two different gunsmiths look at refinishing it for him. They both declined because of the special alloy of steel that Remington used on the receivers of these Sportsman 58. The alloy wouldn’t take regular bluing. I called Remington and tried to find out how they originally blued the receivers. They wouldn’t tell me how they did it. I finally found a bluing kit that would blue the alloy steel properly.
You can see the pic of the stripped and rusted receiver even after many hours of sanding and cleaning it to prep for bluing. After weeks of intermittent on and off work on it when I had the time, it now looks better than the original factory finish. I have many hours of hand sanding, wet sanding, hand polishing and hand buffing the wood, bluing and grip pommel to a mirror finish. I filled in the engraving with the Forster Silver Inlay kit and in my opinion it also looks great.
The grip pommel was covered with thick black paint and then it had a heavy coat of varnish built up on it so you couldn’t even tell what the picture on the pommel was. Now after a few decades of not knowing, I finally know what the pommel depicts. I also couldn’t pass up doing a proper trigger job on it so that the pull is smooth and has a crisp break. I am pretty proud of the overall outcome. My crappy cell phone pics really don’t do it justice.
It isn’t perfect as I couldn’t get all of the small rust pits out of the metal and all the dents out of the wood. I wasn’t concerned about it and I didn’t want to make it perfect. The imperfections tells the story of its past hard loving use by my family and I didn’t want to erase all of it.
If anyone is interested in the Forster Gold or Silver fill kit I will post a link for it. It is an easy kit to use and it actually stays were you put it as opposed to some of the other fill kits that I have used in the past. I don’t have any affiliation with Forster but I have used many of their products and they are all high quality products.
I also used the Gold fill kit on several other projects. One project was to fill in the engraving on my Remington 1100 that was given to me after the passing of one of my uncles.
Some people aren’t sentimental about items that have been in their family. I am and I usually end up with the family heirlooms as my brother isn’t that sentimental about those things as I am. I love looking at my family ancestry. My house has antique items and furniture from my family. Any item passed down in the family no matter the value should be cherished and taken care of. By all means restore it. You did a great job on your .22 so don’t stop now. Monetary value doesn’t mean that much to me when it comes these items. The sentimental value is always worth more to me than the monetary value.
Thanks for the link. I just inherited two old Mossbergs that were originally my Great-Grandfathers and have been working on restoring them. The character that older guns has is always appealing. Great work too!
I’m sure your dad really appreciated your commitment to doing a proper restoration job. It looks very nice. I’m kind of partial to older firearms. They are built to last for generations.
Remington made several models of semi-auto shotguns prior to that 58.
John Moses Browning designed the Browning A-5, it was produced from 1902, and I’m not so sure it isn’t still being built, but not in Belgium. I have a 1929 model that works great, along with a Model 11. The Remington Model 11 is almost the exact same shotgun, and the production run went from 1905-1947, when the Model 11-47 came out. Savage had one too, but the number escapes me. These were all spring guns. They are kind of unusual because the barrel actually recoils into the receiver, like a battleship’s gun. You have to adjust the collets for the load you are using.
Your Model 58 actually came out in 1956, and was Remington’s first gas gun, prior to the Model 1100.
I have two A5 Belgium Brownings. One was my fathers and is a light twelve. The other A5 I bought as part of my military collection. It is a WWI US Property Military shotgun. I know that Remington made the model 11 for the military during WWI but I never counted it as Remington. As you mentioned it is JMB design. I didn’t know about the model 11-47. You are correct though the Sportsman 58 was the first gas semi automatic shotgun for Remington.
I think I missed a year. It’s not an 11-47, but an 11-48. They stopped producing the Model 11 in '47.
I took my Model 11 out to a 3 gun competition, just for fun. All these guys with modern shotguns, were drawn to that old girl, with her rich stock of walnut, and still sporting about 80% of her original bluing. Didn’t miss a beat, until the last set. I broke an extractor spring. Finished up by reaching up and pulling the spent shells out of the port. Slowed us down, but didn’t stop us. Hey, what do you want from a 100 year old dame? That Remington is a 1921 model. Just have to love a gun that still runs that good. Any gun can break a spring.
I had to laugh at an article I read several years back. It was written by some guy that travels internationally. He went to South America on a bird hunt, and somehow they lost his guns. So, he was loaned an old Remington Model 11, by one of the local kids that worked at this preserve. He found out that that particular gun kicked like a mule, so he didn’t shoot it very much. This was this local kid’s treasure. Someone had given it to him. Unfortunately, it had no friction rings, or recoil spring! I didn’t even think it would have functioned. But, the bolt spring was the only thing that kept it cycling. Since it had nothing to eat up the recoil, the bolt was hitting the back of the humpback, every time he pulled the trigger. I think he shot 3 birds, and didn’t want to shoot it again. But, he said that kid was so proud of that old beater. Shows you how tough those old gals were.
I have an extensive WWI & WWII military handgun collection and a couple of nice WWI & WWII military rifles and shotguns. I love all my old orphans. The wood and metal will always speak to me and have more soul than the modern arms. I love the modern ones too but my old ones will always be my favorite.
Of course I’d love to own a few more. One of my mentors, when I was 18, was an interesting fellow of about 68. Good Lord! That was 50 years ago! He had a Remington collection that included one of every rifle Remington had made. All but 3 handguns, and I can’t remember if he had all the shotguns or not. But, he had probably 300 “Tradin’” stock, of various other firearms. We had many conversations about more than a few. I wound up with a couple, and still have the muzzleloader he built. The one I wanted the most was an old 45-70 Rollingblock that wasn’t a military rifle. It was a commercial rifle. Probably killed a lot of Buffalo. The oddity about it was the wear. It had an octagonal breech, that had the edges worn from carrying it. The wrist strap was almost worn smooth, where the lettering was stamped into the steel. Even the trigger was worn. Now remember, this was a black powder gun. The bore was immaculate. Not a pit. The owner of this rifle had to clean it every time he dropped the hammer! Black powder, and the corrosive primers, ate those old barrels alive.
He had a Colt SAA, that he’d gotten at 13. But, it’s late, I’ll tell you the story about it tomorrow.
Please don’t forget to continue the rest of your story. …
I think that you and I could talk and swap stories for hours. I have been collecting and educating myself for a little over 30 years. Even after 30 years there is so much that I don’t know. I always like to talk to people that have intimate knowledge on a series of arms. It seems like you have the Remington side covered.
Merle started his gun collection around 12 years old. He said it was the '20’s, he and his buddy were out riding around town, and came across this guy cleaning out his barn. So, they stopped to check out the “Treasures”. There he said he saw it! An old Colt SAA .45 Long Colt revolver. He said they were all excited to see it, and the guy asked them if they had anything to trade for it. Merle’s buddy said he had a gold pocket watch at home, he’d trade for it, so the guy agreed to take a look. They busted it over to his friends house, collected the gold pocket watch, and rode like crazy to get back before the guy made a deal with someone else. The guy was happy with the trade, and even gave them 6 bullets. Now, they had a problem. They had the gun. They had the bullets. But, they both knew they were dead meat, if either of their dad’s caught them with this gun. So, he said they rode about 2-3 miles out of town, and walked into the woods. That’s when the argument started. “You shoot it! No, you shoot it! It’s your gun, you traded him for your pocket watch! No, I insist! You shoot it first.” So, Merle finally said “OK”. They put the bullets (I know, they’re cartridges) in the old revolver, and Merle pulled it up, and kind of shaking pulled the hammer back, and took aim at a big ol tree. Finally he pulled the trigger. There was a loud “BOOM!”, the gun recoiled over his right shoulder where it hit something rather solid, and then there was a big thump…Merle turned around and was shocked that his buddy was lying motionless on the ground. He said he was scared to death that he had just killed his friend. He said all kinds of terror hit him. He thought he was going to go to jail, or be hung for murder. His dad was going to beat his butt! Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, his friend began to stir, and then sat up holding his head. He had been standing right behind Merle, when the gun went off, and the big piece of steel knocked him out cold. After a while Merle told him, it was his turn to shoot it. His buddy said “Hell No! I never want to see that thing again!” They made up some story about how his friend wrecked his bike and hit his head. Merle took the old Colt home, and hid it under a loose floorboard in his room. He said he’d get it out occasionally, over the years, and finally got it out of the house, when he was 18. He proudly brought it in, and told his dad he bought it for a half dollar. His dad was mad that he wasted a good half dollar. Black powder revolvers weren’t worth anything back then. Everything was smokeless.
That’s how he started his collection. He told me, most of the old black powder guns he had, he hadn’t paid over a couple of bucks for any of them. He kept that revolver up above the door to his study, on a little plaque.
*It’s not that Liberals are ignorant it’s just they know so much that isn’t true”.
And, Roder on the stories.
I’m a retired firefighter. The joke around the firehouse was that I was limited to 2 stories a day. I never achieved that number.
*It’s not that Liberals are ignorant, it’s just they know so much that isn’t true”.
You are more than welcome to use it.