cleaning up Martini-Henry Gahendra

[Colin]

So I bought one of these rifles, almost complete only missing a part off the sight. the bore is good, sadly the barrel under the forestock is very badly pitted. Got it all apart with some oil, heat and TLC. Going to clean up the rust gently on the moving parts and put it back together. Looking for suggestions on cleaning up the wood and a good treatment to protect the metal parts. I suppose filling the pits in the barrel would damage it's value down the road?

thanks for any help.

 

[antiqueguy]

clean(get the rust out of the pitting) it and keep it oiled and hang it on the wall. no matter what you do a gahendra if even if "shootable" is something you take to the range once just to say you've shot it. problem is its made from hand made parts and are fitted to one gun and one gun only so finding parts if one breaks is not going to work. its not very valuable at this point as there are plenty of them about