Old WW Greener 10ga. Shotgun help!

Smitsauce

Smitsauce

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Hello,

I don't have pictures yet, but I will try to get some up tonight when I get home from work.

I bought a very old "Wedge Fast" 10ga. 2 5/8" chambered damascus twist, WW Greener exposed hammer SXS shotgun with 32" barrels from an auction last fall. The serial number is 15942 I think. On the top rib in between the barrels it says "WW Greener St. Mary's Works Birmingham, Canadian agents McNab and Marsh.

I don't know much about these old beauties but I knew that WW Greener's were well made and collectable so I said what the hell. If I can never get it to shoot safely again, what a steal for an amazing piece of history as a wall hanger that you can take down and admire!

Anyway, I have started to clean it up and have stripped the wood down. I have done a bit of clean up on the metal but I would really like to take it right appart to clean the inside of the receiver and get at the rear stock a bit better underneath the hammers. Is it very difficult to disassemble safely without having stuff shoot out when I take out the screws? Am I going to have to need three or four hands to get it back together again?

Also, as the barrels are throughly coated in light rust, what is the best way to clean them up? Is there something that will remove it but keep the swirley metal damascus twisting pattern that is apparent underneath the forend?

The barrels have some pretty good pitting, but nothing too bad. I would of course have them checked out before attempting to fire it.

The lock-up is a little loose with play side to side and a little up and down when closed up. Is that a huge thing to rectify?

I also noticed that one of the nuts that surround the left rear firing pin is missing. Are these hard to replace?

One other thing is the butt plate has rotted almost completely away and is just a skim of crusty rust that I am afraid to even look at for fear of it crumbling off more! I don't imagine these are just sitting around as spares somewhere, but any info on what can be done with it would be welcome or if there is something that could easily be fitted to it.

I just checked and a couple of pics are still up on the website. Here is what it looked like when I bought it.

Nov19_11_429.jpg


Nov19_11_429a.jpg


Any more info. on this baby would be much appreciated!!!

Cheers,

Ian
 
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By stripped the wood down, I do hope you are not referring to stripper, sandpaper, etc.

There aren't really any tricks to dismantling a sidelock hammer gun. Be careful with the screws. Use screwdrivers that fit the slots - even if you have to alter the screwdrivers until they do, and apply moderate force. If the screws don't budge, the challenge begins.
The forestock should come right off, there is likely a latch. Once the forend is off, the barrels will unhinge. The buttstock is retained by screws through the tangs. Turn out the screw on the left hand lock which secures the locks. When it is almost out, give the head a tap; this will start the right hand lock out of its inlet. Then remove the screw and remove the left hand lock as well. Toward the rear of the trigger guard, there will be a woodscrew. Remove it. Free the trigger guard tang. The guard will now unscrew from the trigger plate. There will be a screw holding the trigger plate to the receiver. It comes out. There will be a couple of screws that go in from the top of the tang. One will be under the top lever. Once all these screws are out, the trigger plate can be removed, and then the stock from the receiver. Go easy, don't break or chip anything.
Use very fine steel or bronze wool to remover superfical rust. I prefer to use it with oil, others use it dry. Be careful, you do not want to scrub down to steel. A sharpened brass scraper will remove scab rust. Use oily.
 
Thanks for the info. No, not anything drastic like that. Although I thought about giving it a coat of circa 1850 furniture stripper to get all the mung off of it. I decided to just go lightly with some varsol and an old tooth brush. It got some off, but I stopped because it wasn't working that well.

What do you recommend for cleaning up the wood?

I will have to see how badly these screws are rusted on. What do you recommend as a penetrating oil if they won't turn?

Ian
 
If you have play in the action both up and down and sideways, it is worn on the hinge pin as well as the barrel locking lugs. The easiest way to repair this is to build up the lugs on the barrels. You would have to find someone who is a good tig welder. The weld would then have to be filed down to the correct height and angle required. Can be a bit tricky. If this isn't done then you can forget about shooting the gun. But before you go that far, you mentioned the barrels had pitting. Is this both on the outside and inside? If there is severe pitting, I don't think there is any need to spend the time or money taking the play out of the action. Just clean it up and have a wall hanger and conversation piece.
 
gunsaholic said:
If you have play in the action both up and down and sideways, it is worn on the hinge pin as well as the barrel locking lugs. The easiest way to repair this is to build up the lugs on the barrels. You would have to find someone who is a good tig welder. The weld would then have to be filed down to the correct height and angle required. Can be a bit tricky. If this isn't done then you can forget about shooting the gun. But before you go that far, you mentioned the barrels had pitting. Is this both on the outside and inside? If there is severe pitting, I don't think there is any need to spend the time or money taking the play out of the action. Just clean it up and have a wall hanger and conversation piece.
Click to expand...

From what I can see, there is internal pitting. Not sure how to quantify it. there is far more clean bore than there are pits, but it is throughout both barrels. More so near the chamber than the muzzle if I am not mistaken. I would have the barrels assessed before any other work to make her shootable.

Right now I am just wanting to try and clean up the metal and wood to make it look decent. Perhaps one day if the barrels allow, I will have it gone over throughly and brought back into it's former glory.

Any recommendations on cleaning up the wood and metal?

Cheers,

Ian
 
I've had good results using dishsoap and water to wash old wood. Don't submerse - take a cloth, wet it, and wipe and scrub the surface. Use a soft bristled brush (soft or medium bristled toothbrush works good) to scrub problem areas. Wipe down with a dry cloth. Let it dry at room temp away from heat source and direct sunlight.

Be miserly with the use of water and try not to let it soak in to the wood - funny things can happen if you introduce a lot of humidity to old dry gunstocks, and it's usually not good things.

When the stock has dried well from cleaning for at least a couple days you can wipe it down with an cloth lightly dipped in an oil product - i like boiled linseed oil, which is available in paint stores. Apply it sparingly, you are not trying to refinish, you are only applying a very light coat as a protectant and preservative for the wood.
 
#### the hammers before trying to take the locks off the stock!
May of them do not come off nearly so easily if un-cocked, because the springs tend to hang up on the lock mortise.
Cat
 
I wouldn't be worried about trying to shoot it, a number of factors from the missing striker bushing to the Damascus barrels to the loose action would preclude that in my judgement. Even when 'back to life' it is a black powder shell only gun, with 2 1/2" / 2 9/16" / 2 5/8" non-modern dimension chambers. Very likely for thin rim shells as well, often old Euro shotguns used a thinner rim dimension than modern American shells, not a huge issue but yet again more tweaking to get the action to close right on face. If you ask me it's a beauty for above the fireplace, at the right price, cleaned up a touch.
 
Ok, so I have both of the screws off of the locks. I tried to unscrew the left one almost all the way and then tap on it to loosen the other, but that didn't seem to do anything. Perhaps I just need to soak it overnight with some more penetrating oil.

The locks seem to be pressed onto a square pinion. How do you get them off of that? I am not too comfortable trying to pry them off from behind as I don't want to scratch the receiver. Any thoughts?

I am not really sure that any money spent on this shotgun would be worth it as mentioned by Ardent above. I will just do my best to clean it up and have a really nice piece of art for the wall. It will look realy nice on the weathered square antique log wall of our new addition to the family room!

Ian
 
Are you talking the locks or the hammers? The hammers will be on a square pinion. Removing the screw from the hammer removes the hammer only. The lock is the whole sideplate assembly that sits into the stock. If you remove the screw that goes from the left side through to the right side lock, they should come out. As mentioned, remove the screw part way but leave a few threads in the right side. Tap the screw and the end of the lock on the right side should pop out. The front of the lock will have a bit of a lip on it that goes into a groove in the receiver. Once the back end pops out, you may have to pull back on the lock a bit to remove it.
 
Sorry, I guess I was getting them mixed up. It doesn't look like the hammers are supposed to come off. I finally got everything apart and am soaking all the metal parts in penetrating oil. As this will probably never be fired again, I am not going to try and take apart the receiver any further. I will just clean everything up and put it back together for a really nice wall hanger. Thanks for all of your help. I will post pictures up when I am finished in the next couple of days.

Cheers,

Ian
 
The hammers will come off, but there is a bit of a procedure for doing it. The entire lock is stripped first; this requires a mainspring vise. Once the hammer and tumbler are the only remaining parts, the hammer screw is removed, and then a proper sized punch can be inserted into the hammer retaining screw hole, the lockplate supported, and the tumbler driven out of the hammer. The hammers are supposed to be tight on the tumbler shanks.
 
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