Another Survival Shotgun

evilgrin

evilgrin

CGN Regular
Rating - 100%
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Location
Peterborough Ontario
I have been reading the threads by some of the other CGNers on here and have seen some really nice work on cutting down single shot shotguns to make a nice, light and portable package. I thought I would give it a try myself as it looked like a lot of fun.

I started with a plain old Cooey 84. I forgot to take a pic of it before I started, as I was excited to being. So here is a general pic of one. We all know what they look like.

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I started with the stock first. I cut the end of the buttstock off and sanded it all smooth. The bolt hole needed to be counterbored so the bolt head would sit flat and be countersunk out of the way. I used a milling machine with a 1/2" cutter to achieve this. I decided to use a stainless steel cap screw instead of a hex head bolt. As you can see, it fits in nice and is out of the way. I turned the cap screw down on a lathe to smooth and round the head. After sanding all the wood I applied bombay mahogany gloss stain and polyurethane.
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I cut and recrowned the barrel on a lathe. The bluing needed some work so I polished it with a scotch-brite pad while in the lathe. I used the cheap Outters cold bluing from Crappy Tire to reblue the barrel. I applied 6 coats to finally get it even and dark. After assembling everything you can see difference in finish between the receiver and the barrel. So needless to say I had to polish and blue the receiver as well.

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Once I get a chance to get it out and put some lead down range I'll post more pics and the results.

Sorry for the small pics in the second part. Not sure why it turned out like that.

(edit) So I took it out today and tried it out. It was getting dark so the video is a little grainy but the second video shows some pretty nice fireballs. Gotta say, what a blast that was. Next time I get it out I will pattern it and see a little more about the accuracy. 7 1/2 shot kicks pretty good, but it's easy to hold on to. #4 shot, well thats a different story. It packed a pretty good punch. If I wasn't holding it as tight as I was it could have easily hurt my hand. Then after that, I thought it would be a good idea to try a 1oz rifled slug. Again, what a punch! Watch the videos and see for yourself. Still, fun, lots of fun! Can't wait to take it out again!

This video is just a few rounds of the 7 1/2 shot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmKbQczYjpk


This is the video with some nice fireballs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb9UFNHdarw
 
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That is a very nice piece of work. I did the same thing a while back, but i didnt put nearly that much effort in to it. I was looking for more of a truck and beater gun so i picked one up for 80 bucks and chopped the barrel down to 19", thats all. I really like the look of what you did and have been toying with the idea of making a pistol grip for mine. After seeing this i may just do that.
 
a nice job on the gun . dont try heavy loads or you will end up with a cut hand from the opening lever being driven into your hand . i think if a gun that had the opener on the trigger guard could be used for this project it would eliminate that problem .let us know how it shoots. looks like fun to me .
 
farmer47 said:
a nice job on the gun . dont try heavy loads or you will end up with a cut hand from the opening lever being driven into your hand . i think if a gun that had the opener on the trigger guard could be used for this project it would eliminate that problem .let us know how it shoots. looks like fun to me .
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I am going to try a few different loads in it to see what happens. Just going to start with some light #7 loads for skeet. I want to work my way up to a slug, but nothing crazy. Just the cheap rifled slugs at walmart. And don't worry, I'll be wearing gloves. The lever that opens the action is only an inch away from my hand when holding it now. This will be a two handed operation.
 
Nice work.
If you tension the gun by pushing forward on the foreend and pulling back with the rear hand you can spread the recoil to both arms.
Pulling like this you can probably shoot with your thumb to the right side ( if you are right handed) and avoid exposing the web of your hand to the lever.
It might also be easy to attach a strap to both the front wood and the bottom of the pistol grip to help with retention......looking forward to your report!


edit, The receivers on the old cooeys were color case hardened and never matched the blueing of the barrels....looks good though with your cold blue job!
 
I've considered doing on on a 12g CIL 402 since they have the release infront of the trigger guard....maybe I'll have to get doing it
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I have the same model, i cut the barrel down to 18.5 im just not sure about cutting it into a pistol grip i would rather find a spare stock somewhere and cut that into a pistol grip that way i can still keep the original intact
 
Dean_1911 said:
I have the same model, i cut the barrel down to 18.5 im just not sure about cutting it into a pistol grip i would rather find a spare stock somewhere and cut that into a pistol grip that way i can still keep the original intact
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Exactly my plans. Keep the original stock,but somehow make a pistol grip. The bonus with the CIL 403 is the sling swivel on the barrel is within 18.5" , so you can attach another swivel to the new pistol grip and attach a sling to the new gun.
 
I've always liked cut down single shots, I used to make them out of the Baikal IZH18, the latch on the bottom never caused any problems like the cooeys.
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Great set of pictures, and an awesome job. I was thinking about making one of these too, and now I have to. I have a Cooey model 840 16 ga., and an Iver Johnson Champion 12 ga. Just gotta decide which one to chop down.

I'd love to see bigger pictures of your project.
 
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