That turned out beautiful ! Excellent job. You might need to open a side gig.
Excellent.
Love it!
Guys thanks for all of the compliments. It was a labor of love for my Dad. If you have anything that you refinished please share. I would love to see what you guys have done.
Hereâs a couple of pix of 3. The shotgun is a 1929 Browning A-5. I wish you could have seen it as it originally was. The old police sargeant I got it from, was a regular at the VFW watering hole, and a good friend of mine. He said some of these old soldiers would get their nose in the sauce (drunk), and run out of money. Theyâd sell him their trunk guns, so they could keep drinking. Then, you never knew how long one would float around in Albertâs trunk.
I had refinished a stock for Albert, and asked him how much he wanted for the A-5. He told me $20.00. I told him it was worth more than that. He said 20 bucks! So, I bought it. The checkering was almost completely gone. The forearm was split in two, and it looked like someone had tried to put the butt pad on with a bench grinder. It had a flamethrower on the barrel end, and no sights. I had a âgunsmithâ solder the sights on, cut the compensator off, and recrown the barrel. The rear sight hit me between my eyes, on about the 4th shot, so I had to solder it on myself.
I hollowed out the forearm, and laid fiberglass inside. The rich European walnut, on the rear stock, came to life again after a bit of elbow grease. It has 10 coats of Tru-Oil on it. This was my first attempt at recheckering. I didnât have the right tools, but it didnât come out too badly. I used a thread file to space my lines out.
The Mosin Nagant 44, was a purchase from my mailman, for $45.00. He got it for $40.00 at a tag sale. It was completely black, when I got it. Someone had sprayed it with truck bed liner. I was pleasantly surprised that it had a laminate stock, that is almost iridescent under 10 coats of hand rubbed Tru-Oil. I turned the bolt handle down, and flattened it, then did some reshaping. This thing is accurate!
The last is a Stevens 66C that I cleaned all the old damage up, and again put 10 coats of Tru-Oil on.
So what would you recommend here?
The bluing was so bad on the receiver, that I polished it off with Scotchbrite. I keep it oiled to prevent rust, not too difficult here in dry Colorado.
I worry about having it, and the barrel re-blued, and it not be a quality job. I want it to look good if Iâm going to tackle this.
Cerakote?
Iâm unsure of how to proceed.
I also have firing pin issues, I believe spring related. Iâll be replacing the pin and spring.
Beautiful work, sir. My father and I restored a Savage model 187 .22 rimfire rifle that his friend gave him. My Dad had the exact rifle when he was a kid, and the thing had no serial number so you get an idea how old it was. Turned out great, but it was nicknamed the âjammomaticâ. Thing would not fire 10 rounds without some kind of hickup. He gave it to me, and I replaced springs and extractor pieces, and like your situation, gunsmiths didnât wanna put real effort into it because you can buy a Marlin 60 for under $200.00. I gave up on it and Iâm gonna try to fit my stainless Marlin 60 into the solid walnut stock, which is the best thing about that Savage.
New ones are for work/need. The old babyâs are for for pure pleasure. They do the job if called upon. But Do you want to give a beauty to the sheriff?? Why give up love if not not for for family. What is most important?
Family is everything.
Great work sir,
I have purchased an abused Marlin 336, and restored it with a new loading gate, large loop lever, and Mlok handguard! Purchased from RPP and I have got the best deal.
https://rangerpointstore.com/marlin-loop-levers-stainless-steel-1894-336-308-338-444-1895-450m/
It would be awesome to see a picture of your restored Marlin! Marlin was bought by Ruger just recently, and theyâve continued the Marlin 1895 SBL in .45-70. Wish I still had that Guns & Ammo magazine because they talked about the whole process and its meticulous refinement. Glad to see it still lives on!
Funny that I am just now seeing this thread. I have only sold four firearms in my life. I wish that I had all of them today, but my number one regret is a 870 Wingmaster I had. Standard 28" mod. Choke barrel also with a 30" full choke barrel I had purchased later. Absolutely beautiful shotgun. I wanted a 870 SP and was strapped at the time so I let it go to a co-worker who I really didnât like. Later on I really grew to despise the guy I sold it to. Moral is, Donât sell guns.
I have only sold few in my lifetime. Most of the ones that I sold someone else wanted more than I did. For the right price just about anything is for sale.
This is an interesting Police Trade-in! âIf it was good enough for your great-great-grandfather, itâs good enough for youâ 
Thatâs awesome 
1911- Looks great. Iâm in the process of restoring a model 58 myself. I just finished blueing the barrel using Perma Blue paste. It took six passes and a lot of buffing but it eventually turned out nice. I was wondering what you used for the receiver. You seem to imply normal cold blue might not work due to the metal used for the receiver. Iâm still working on the stock and forend. Iâd like to have the right blue solution in hand before I tackle the receiver.
Iâm trying to do this to my hand-me-down 58. It looks like it is in similar shape to what you started with and i havenât found anyone that wants to touch it either. Could you let me know what bluing kit you used for the special alloy. I would be thrilled if it came out looking like yours.
Welcome to the forum
@jareddavidson1
Be sure to share your progress with us.
This is a Remington model 11 that a good friend of mine has that his grandfather carried through WWII. The stock was broken on both sides of the tang. He didnât have the broken pieces of the stock. I had to sand down the sides of the stock that was broken off down so that they were flat. I had a old broken walnut stock that I cut some pieces off of to shape into replacement parts. I tinted some epoxy and use it to glue the replacement parts onto the stock. I drilled down through the replacement parts and into the old stock. I glued two old drill bits into the holes to reinforce the stock. The spirals of the drill bits gave the epoxy something to flow into to grab onto as opposed to just a smooth round metal rod. The stock had shrunk so I had to do some fitting to close up the gaps. Sone of the gaps I couldnât fully close up. I used some of the walnut sawdust and mixed it with the tinted epoxy to fill in the gaps. The saw dust in the tinted epoxy accepted even more stain so that it really looked like real wood. The handguard also had a crack that I had to open up so that the tinted epoxy could get into the crack and bond to it. I fixed and reinforced handguard so that it wouldnât crack again. I refinished both the stock and handguard. I used an old gunsmith trick and used some plumberâs putty to fill in spaces in the tang. Green painterâs tape to tape the mteal parts with. Another old gunsmith trick of using neutral shoe polish as a release agent so that I didnât end up gluing the stock to the receiver with the filler tinted epoxy. Overall I was very pleased with the finished product.
This is an old wooden bowl that my wifes Granny always used to mix her awsome homemade biscuits in. The bowl was made when the woodwasnât fully dried. Over time the bowl started cracking, splitting all around the rim and literally pulling away from each other leaving big gaps in the rim of the bowl. One piece of the rim was completely broken off and missing. My wife wanted the bowl when her granny passed away. Her granny taught my wife how to make her homemade biscuits in that same bowl. Her granny never used a recipe to make her biscuits or measuring cups she did it from experience. Nobody in my wifes family knows exactly how to make grannyâs biscuits but my wife. Noone else wanted the bowl because most people would have thrown it away. Her granny kept on using it because it came from her mother. I looked at it on a shelf in our house for years and finally decided that I could fix the bowl. My wife was making her biscuits in a stainless steel bowl. She often commented that the steel bowl didnât feel right to make her biscuits. I so wish that I would have taken pictures of the bowl before I started working on it. Not only did the rim have big gaps in it but the a few of edges of the cracks were twisted in opposite directions so that you couldnât just clamp and glue the edges back together. I worked on the bowl off and on for days. I was still recovering from covid so my hands would tire out easily while working and sanding on the bowl. Once I had managed to fill and fix the cracks I put a hand rubbed oil finish back on it because you donât want to use petroleum based products on a bowl that you fix food in. Everyone in my wifes family was shocked when my wife sent them pics of the refinished bowl. Another very cool thing about the bowl was all of the scratches in the bottom and sides of the bowl from decades of use. Before I put the hand rubbed finish on it I used a heat gun to darken the wood of the bowl to make it a richer and darker colored bowl. I didnât tint or try to hide the epoxy in cracks by tinting the epoxy. You can see the repairs that I made to it. My wife agreed to not to try and hide the repairs. To me repairs are now part of the history of the bowl. The bowl is a treasured heirloom for both my wife and I
Nice job in both of those projects Greg!! 