My first restore...1917 No.1 MkIII

[vermintrex]

hullo,

She started as this...with a bunch of missing parts, (top one, not my picture)

then this happened

and then I saw this

Just waiting for the Brake Kleen to do it's thing.....then glue and clamp overnight..pics up of that when it happens

Thanks to George and Louis ( especially Louis who offered up all missing the small parts...all of them, not kidding) for their excellent advice and patience with a noob and his many questions, you guys really helped me out...above and beyond.




and...un-related to this restore theme....I can only take three next weekend, I've never fired a single one pictured.....what to do ? (have ammo for all, but some would only be fired 20 rounds max...others, way more)

 

[louthepou]

Safe to say, you're now officially hooked for life on milsurps. And fixing the DAMN CRACK on a SMLE forend is a bit of a rite of passage

 

[Claven2]

On those beech stocks, the vertical crack is often just related to the nature of beech wood, which tends to crack and warp more than walnut. Assuming hte draws are tight (you have feeler gauges, right?), it could just be epoxied and clamped. The tie plate on the back will prevent it from getting much worse if the draws are OK.

 

[vermintrex]

I don't have feeler gauges....is that something gunsmithing specific or any old auto set will do ? The fore stock is in excellent shape otherwise, I think it must have been NOS, it looks much newer than all the rest of the wood (so without really knowing what to check...I think it's safe to say the draws are ok).

She's glued and clamped as I write this.

 

[hacer2]

i get shivers everytime i see a picture of the Damn crack

 

[Skaal-tel]

Excellent collection! Is that a swedish mauser I see?

 

[vermintrex]

yes sir...1942 Husqvarna.M38, all matching (hardly any of my rifles fully match so that's pretty cool)...need to find a thread guard for it, those exposed threads bug me lol

 

[vermintrex]

update guys.


took the c-clamp off and....no more crack ...just some evidence of the repair..

put her back together...with all the missing parts...now she's complete, except for the incorrect stock disk (has arabic lettering)...only the reciever and bolt truly match...looks like the barrel was FTR'd in '54...but it's a nice barrel ! I better have this one looked at by a gunsmith after my messing around...but I feel pretty confident she's been saved.

She's on top...the other is my Lithgow

 

[vermintrex]

tried to get a decent shot of the bore....I had the flash turned off, so the whole photo is a bit grainy...that's not a frosty bore, it's just photo grain, she's nice and shiny. really hope she's a decent shooter, that'll help make up for the fact that I bought on good faith a rifle that was missing half it's parts and had a cracked stock.

Had fun with this !

 

[vermintrex]

they were starved....

comes with a can opener