I recently finished restoring my first rifle and thought I would share. This rifle was a co-workers who wanted to give to his son as a gift before his birthday, so it was somewhat time sensitive although I had several months. The condition of the rifle was very rough, all metal parts were rusted thoroughly but for the most part not destructively and all stainless parts where very tarnished and some actually had rust on them. the rear sight was missing and the buttplate was broken and part of it lost, the sling swivels where also gone and in there place the holes where cracking as the weather had gotten to them. the stock had a crack near action and in the previously mentioned sling holes, there was also a deep gouge on the right side of the butt as well as some unknown black staining. Here are the pics of the rifle before any work was done:
I believe I was lucky with the stock as it was so worn that there was not much finish left on it to strip, but the stock was very dirty and after taking it in the shower and spraying it with scaling hot water, a steam treatment to get some of the remaining crud and stain out and after a light sanding it looked like this.
I then continued to sand until I got as much raw wood as possible without reducing the stock size too much and to get rid of the ink stain as steaming attempts did nothing. Here is an example of the difference of wood from before and after, the wood in the finger grove is the original.
After sanding was complete I was left this this (Starting at 80 grain and getting finer until smooth).
I then repaired the cracks in the stock with wood glue and the left over saw dust, which I also noticed changed color from brown to a red after sanding. I attempted to repair the gouge on the butt in the same way but after sanding it just looked like a very obvious repair and I knew I would not keep the wood grain so I made a judgement call to sand down the gouge and keep it as a small divot. I then proceeded to stain the stock with a foam brush.
As for a clear coat, I have seen others get very good results with Tung oil so I decided to give it a shot. I had never used Tung oil before or rather never even refinished a piece of furniture before and the Tung oil was defiantly a learning curve. After applying if left too long it gets very sticky and hard to wipe off without getting all kinds of fuzz from a rag all over it, leaving it on without wiping off results in a very uneven coat. I found applying it with a rubber gloves and waiting only 5 mins before wiping it all off with a rag and letting it hang to be the solution. Here are the results of about 7 coats of oil. Lighly rubbed with 0000 steel wool in between coats.
Above illustrates the gouge on the top of the butt.
I was very satisfied with these results, the stock was very smooth and it all looked very even. The more coats of Tung oil applied the more wood grain popped from the wood. After the stock was complete, I thing began to work on the parts that attach directly to the stock: the trigger, trigger pin, trigger guard and screws, buttpad and buttpad screws, and sling swivels. As I didn’t have a lot of time to source all original parts I opted to simply install some sling/bipod studs in the existing sling holes, a simple process as to bore out a slightly larger hole and then practice correct indexing of the studs on a piece of wood before installing, after that was complete I worked on cleaning and polishing the trigger and trigger pin. For cleaning steel parts I used a Dremel with a wire brush and CLP to get rid of all rust and corrosion, then for stainless parts I used the Dremel polishing tools with the compound to get rid of the tarnished areas and to polish it up. Here is an example of the polished trigger as opposed to the unpolished sear.
(most of the Dremel tools used were part of those cheap kits you get from crappy tire)
After installing the trigger back into the stock I went to work on the trigger guard and screws for the stock. As these parts where originally blued I decided to grab some G96 cold blueing and give it a shot for the first time, after clearing all the rust from the screws and trigger guard (rust was actually packed into the screw heads and on the trigger guard) I Heated the parts and applied the cold blueing, I found the cold blueing to work very well on small parts like the screws but it was much harder to get an even finish on larger areas, and I don’t trust its long term durability. After the blueing was done I install all the parts back on the stock. (buttplate was replaced completely by a reproduction part)
(I did have to create a tool to install the screw that is covered by the trigger guard)
At this point I slowly began working on the rest of the action and bolt, the tarnish on the bolt handle was substantial so this took a fair amount of cleaning and polishing. To clean some areas of the bolt I used a bore brush attached to a drill with a great deal of success (as seen on the inside of the bolt handle).
The final part was the barrel, after thoroughly cleaning the bore and clearing off all the rust and cleaning the surface of the barrel as much as possible I went to work with the cold blueing. Cold blueing a large piece of metal like this was very challenging to get a very even look and in the end I ran out of blueing and it had done the job reasonably well but it was not as great as I would have liked. I realize hot blueing would have been the best for this kind of job but I did not have the resources and if I had not been trying to be as original as possible I would have simply painted the black parts with a good durable paint. In the end this is what I ended up with and my co-worker was very happy with the results. I also simply replaced the missing rear sight with a William’s dovetail sight. It works well with it although shoots slightly high, but this can be solved by getting the lowest version of the sight.
All in all that’s my first ever restoration and I think it went pretty well, I now have an itch to do more like it. I apologize for not getting more before pics of the individual parts before cleaning/blueing. Please tell me what you think and/or what I could have done better. As for how she shoots, the action is very smooth and polishing the parts of the trigger made for a very nice smooth trigger pull. Accuracy unfortunately I cannot say is very good both for that fact I couldn't test it very good and that the bore of the rifle was actually damaged from rust.
I believe I was lucky with the stock as it was so worn that there was not much finish left on it to strip, but the stock was very dirty and after taking it in the shower and spraying it with scaling hot water, a steam treatment to get some of the remaining crud and stain out and after a light sanding it looked like this.
I then continued to sand until I got as much raw wood as possible without reducing the stock size too much and to get rid of the ink stain as steaming attempts did nothing. Here is an example of the difference of wood from before and after, the wood in the finger grove is the original.
After sanding was complete I was left this this (Starting at 80 grain and getting finer until smooth).
I then repaired the cracks in the stock with wood glue and the left over saw dust, which I also noticed changed color from brown to a red after sanding. I attempted to repair the gouge on the butt in the same way but after sanding it just looked like a very obvious repair and I knew I would not keep the wood grain so I made a judgement call to sand down the gouge and keep it as a small divot. I then proceeded to stain the stock with a foam brush.
As for a clear coat, I have seen others get very good results with Tung oil so I decided to give it a shot. I had never used Tung oil before or rather never even refinished a piece of furniture before and the Tung oil was defiantly a learning curve. After applying if left too long it gets very sticky and hard to wipe off without getting all kinds of fuzz from a rag all over it, leaving it on without wiping off results in a very uneven coat. I found applying it with a rubber gloves and waiting only 5 mins before wiping it all off with a rag and letting it hang to be the solution. Here are the results of about 7 coats of oil. Lighly rubbed with 0000 steel wool in between coats.
Above illustrates the gouge on the top of the butt.
I was very satisfied with these results, the stock was very smooth and it all looked very even. The more coats of Tung oil applied the more wood grain popped from the wood. After the stock was complete, I thing began to work on the parts that attach directly to the stock: the trigger, trigger pin, trigger guard and screws, buttpad and buttpad screws, and sling swivels. As I didn’t have a lot of time to source all original parts I opted to simply install some sling/bipod studs in the existing sling holes, a simple process as to bore out a slightly larger hole and then practice correct indexing of the studs on a piece of wood before installing, after that was complete I worked on cleaning and polishing the trigger and trigger pin. For cleaning steel parts I used a Dremel with a wire brush and CLP to get rid of all rust and corrosion, then for stainless parts I used the Dremel polishing tools with the compound to get rid of the tarnished areas and to polish it up. Here is an example of the polished trigger as opposed to the unpolished sear.
(most of the Dremel tools used were part of those cheap kits you get from crappy tire)
After installing the trigger back into the stock I went to work on the trigger guard and screws for the stock. As these parts where originally blued I decided to grab some G96 cold blueing and give it a shot for the first time, after clearing all the rust from the screws and trigger guard (rust was actually packed into the screw heads and on the trigger guard) I Heated the parts and applied the cold blueing, I found the cold blueing to work very well on small parts like the screws but it was much harder to get an even finish on larger areas, and I don’t trust its long term durability. After the blueing was done I install all the parts back on the stock. (buttplate was replaced completely by a reproduction part)
(I did have to create a tool to install the screw that is covered by the trigger guard)
At this point I slowly began working on the rest of the action and bolt, the tarnish on the bolt handle was substantial so this took a fair amount of cleaning and polishing. To clean some areas of the bolt I used a bore brush attached to a drill with a great deal of success (as seen on the inside of the bolt handle).
The final part was the barrel, after thoroughly cleaning the bore and clearing off all the rust and cleaning the surface of the barrel as much as possible I went to work with the cold blueing. Cold blueing a large piece of metal like this was very challenging to get a very even look and in the end I ran out of blueing and it had done the job reasonably well but it was not as great as I would have liked. I realize hot blueing would have been the best for this kind of job but I did not have the resources and if I had not been trying to be as original as possible I would have simply painted the black parts with a good durable paint. In the end this is what I ended up with and my co-worker was very happy with the results. I also simply replaced the missing rear sight with a William’s dovetail sight. It works well with it although shoots slightly high, but this can be solved by getting the lowest version of the sight.
All in all that’s my first ever restoration and I think it went pretty well, I now have an itch to do more like it. I apologize for not getting more before pics of the individual parts before cleaning/blueing. Please tell me what you think and/or what I could have done better. As for how she shoots, the action is very smooth and polishing the parts of the trigger made for a very nice smooth trigger pull. Accuracy unfortunately I cannot say is very good both for that fact I couldn't test it very good and that the bore of the rifle was actually damaged from rust.
