I have no idea why I didn't pick one of these up earlier. I'm a lever guy, but have been trying to find a 788 in 30-30 for years with no luck. Then there was this beater Stevens 325B listed cheap on the EE and I figured why not, could be a fun project.
The wood was rough, the front barrel band and screw were gone, muzzle was banged up, and front sight was loosely holding on by a thread. But it cycled, dry fired, and the bore was fine (after some scrubbing).
So I cut the Barrel down to 18.5", and gave it a nice recessed crown. Soldered on a front sight ramp and replaced the rear (non windage adjustible) sight with a dovetail rear sight I had kicking around.
I didn't know where to find a barrel band so I ended up Welding a split washer to the rear underside of the action and installing a bolt right down through the trigger guard. Now it's secured in two places on the action and I was able to float the barrel.
Then refinished the wood after a little re shaping.
It's pretty Bush, and Bubba had a hand with this one. But it's a nice compact light little bush gun with a surprisingly good trigger. That shoots 150g PP into 1" at 50yd.
For the price of these guns (even when they don't need work) it's hard to pass up.
The wood was rough, the front barrel band and screw were gone, muzzle was banged up, and front sight was loosely holding on by a thread. But it cycled, dry fired, and the bore was fine (after some scrubbing).
So I cut the Barrel down to 18.5", and gave it a nice recessed crown. Soldered on a front sight ramp and replaced the rear (non windage adjustible) sight with a dovetail rear sight I had kicking around.
I didn't know where to find a barrel band so I ended up Welding a split washer to the rear underside of the action and installing a bolt right down through the trigger guard. Now it's secured in two places on the action and I was able to float the barrel.
Then refinished the wood after a little re shaping.
It's pretty Bush, and Bubba had a hand with this one. But it's a nice compact light little bush gun with a surprisingly good trigger. That shoots 150g PP into 1" at 50yd.
For the price of these guns (even when they don't need work) it's hard to pass up.
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