1895 restoration (pic heavy) project is finished

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jomarz

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A while back I bought an 1895 winchester from another CGNer as a project gun It needed rebarreling plus some bubba reversal, new wood and a lot of polishing. It was originally a .303 british with a horribly oversize bore (random keyholes all over the target). As I did not have a .303 brit. reamer but I did have a .405 win. reamer (same rim dia.) I went wih the .405 and ordered barrel from Mystic Precision and as the wood needed replacing I ordered a semi inletted claro walnut stock set. About six weeks for the barrel and two weeks for the stock, so I had lots of time for cleaning and polishing. at some time in its travels someone bubba'd a dovetail slot in the bolt with a file so I cleaned it up in my milling machine and for now it has a brass filler. Here are some of my progress pics, was sick for a while and had pneumonia so it slowed me down some but I will try to finish before spring.
joe

Well the project is finished except for the range test, so here's what it looks like now.

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The finished product.
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Grove said:
A classic completely RUINED.

RIP classic 1895.
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Unfortunately you probably never brought back a rifle from a little more scrap and made it into a functioning firearm to understand what's invoved. You have to work with what you've got and making the best of it. It's a shame when someone who probably has no skills or talent would degrade some one else's work. When you can show what you can do post it and wait for the comments.
 
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All I can say is that is one incredible restoration. You do fantastic work. The stock is better done than some of the full time pro's do. Please post the final photo's after it's blued.

You should maybe quit your day job
 
Beautiful work!

Smack yourself in the face with a hammer, for letting someone near it with that goddamn dime store engraver. Then smack yourself again. Really hard.

No smilies intended. Sorry.

Great job until that. Looks out of place huge.

Cheers
Trev
 
Looks a sight better than when I shipped it. It will definitely shoot a lot better too . Great work Joe, I really like the new twist on an old classic. The shotgun butt will be easier on the shoulder too?
 
No wonder people give up on the shooting community. People taking massive dumps on a guy for restoring a gun as he can, and doing a nice job at it. Maybe it's no longer original, but what the heck, shot out and abused isn't exactly original condition either.

As a side note, isn't it possible to over trace the engraving with a nicer graver to flesh out the lines and give them some wider deeper curves? I don't see anything on this gun that the owner has done that irreperably altered it short of the engraving, and that looks decent and can be upgraded further if he wishes.
 
The best thing that can be said about that engraving, is that it wont take a long time to sand it off.

With the time, effort, and money that has been put into it, I think that jomarz has done poorly for himself and his work, hanging that scratching upon it.

There are a fair few hand engravers around yet, and a search through the ones I found by pounding "hand engravers Canada" into Google, shows that there are lots of choices without having to send the parts out of the country.

Not going to be 60 cents a letter, but not going to look like an afterthought, or 1970's Remington production line stencils either.

Cheers
Trev
 
Beautiful. I have one here that I'm planning on restoring to a degree but nothing nearly as nice as what you're doing here. It was supposed to be my winter project but then I got distracted with other things in my life and haven't had the chance to work on it proper.
 
Disregard some of the posts here Joe. (I think that we can figure out that some aren't keen on engraving, but hey, last time I checked you weren't building it for anyone else.) It's going to look fantastic when it's finished. When the time comes to restore the .30-03, I'll know who to contact.

Clint
 
I like it Very nicely done to take a pos and turn it into a beautiful fully functioning firearm lets be honest this thing had very little collectors value before just a parts gun
way to go keep up the good work I sold one in similar condition as a parts gun I wish I had your knowledge it would have been nice to be able to do something with it
 
DEZ said:
I like it Very nicely done to take a pos and turn it into a beautiful fully functioning firearm lets be honest this thing had very little collectors value before just a parts gun
way to go keep up the good work I sold one in similar condition as a parts gun I wish I had your knowledge it would have been nice to be able to do something with it
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Exactly! The rifle looked like a parts gun to me especially with the bore washed out. Nice job, you had nothing to lose and everything to gain.
 
first is my compliments to Jomarz for his patience and his skill. I have no criticism on his work.

A few of the comments such as the one by Grove however raise the old issue of "what is a valuable antique?". The few collectors that I have met, by and large will only touch guns that are in factory new condition or very nearly so. For the most part they do not shoot their guns. A while back I posted some photos in the black powder section, of a Spencer rifle that I had rebuilt for the local military museum. A couple of people who work for a provincial museum had said that their museums would never make any changes on their guns from the as found condition and I suppose that is the approach that Grove is taking. The counter argument is how many collectors and particularly museums would display a box of rusty parts with no provenance and use it as an example of a specific type of gun?

the bottom line is that I think many people have a greatly inflated idea of the collectable value of old guns in badly worn condition.

I suppose some would consider me a collector of sorts but in my case, my interest is in the mechanical aspects of old guns and I also buy or trade for them with the intention of shooting them. In that regard, I see nothing wrong with bringing back a badly worn old gun to good shooting condition

cheers mooncoon
 
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