As some of you may remember, I recently acquired a "well used" No5. Since it was already a bit of a "FrankEnfield", I decided to clean it up a bit and hopefully make it a little prettier and perhaps even a shooter. Well I'm not sure about the "shooter" bit yet as I haven't been to range in a while and if this rain keeps up, it'll be a little while longer yet.
So it started out as a fairly decent looking rifle with all the proper wood, but with well worn paint and a butt stock that was way too short for me; somewhere along the lines of a 12.5" LOP. I went to the local gunstore and picked up a better fitting stock, (fore and aft, but badly "bubba'd") but it was an entirely different type and colour of wood.
With some trial and error, mixing and matching, I finally got the wood to as close a match as I could. (sorry for the carpet... I know, I know... IT BURNS!!!)
With the wood ready to go, I turned my attention to the metal. Here are a couple of "before" pics for you (sporting the bubba'd fore and butt stocks):
I steel wooled and de-greased the whole thing and gave it a nice even layer of DuraCoat, and after it had cured for about 3 weeks, finished it off with a satin finish clear coat. I put it together last night (adding a shim about halfway down the barrel as instructed) and snapped a few pics for your enjoyment. The first is a "true colour" with the following two pics "muted" a bit for artistic purposes.
Yes, I know the rear sling swivel is a travesty, but other than that... waddya think?
So it started out as a fairly decent looking rifle with all the proper wood, but with well worn paint and a butt stock that was way too short for me; somewhere along the lines of a 12.5" LOP. I went to the local gunstore and picked up a better fitting stock, (fore and aft, but badly "bubba'd") but it was an entirely different type and colour of wood.
With some trial and error, mixing and matching, I finally got the wood to as close a match as I could. (sorry for the carpet... I know, I know... IT BURNS!!!)
With the wood ready to go, I turned my attention to the metal. Here are a couple of "before" pics for you (sporting the bubba'd fore and butt stocks):
I steel wooled and de-greased the whole thing and gave it a nice even layer of DuraCoat, and after it had cured for about 3 weeks, finished it off with a satin finish clear coat. I put it together last night (adding a shim about halfway down the barrel as instructed) and snapped a few pics for your enjoyment. The first is a "true colour" with the following two pics "muted" a bit for artistic purposes.
Yes, I know the rear sling swivel is a travesty,
but other than that... waddya think?
