The Cooey Make-Over Thread

Ok...

It's a "makeover" but, not necessarily for the better...

No pictures of the rifle I bought 25 years ago....It had the stock re-done and, you could still smell linseed oil. I was 15-16 and, just knew how much better a rifle it would be if painted black. I also liquid cold blued it too....I'm a Fudd now!

25 year old paint job shown here...
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Paint removed from the Stock (I must have been a pretty keen kid...about 10,000 coats of serious black paint were hurt to show you this...)
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Feeling a touch "experimental" with faux finishses...I bleached some stripes in it:
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Then (foolishly) added some more, darker, stripes:
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A few coats of tru-oil and a matte black spray bombed barrel and, action:
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...it is "made over" but, not sure it's any prettier for the effort! I thought this thread needed another 64!

If I can't get used to it I'll just do it over again!
 
I just picked this up in the EE. It was sold listed as a winchester ranger but appears to be a cooey, or at least in a cooey 75 stock... heck i don't know much about these guns, it could be a winchester/cooey ranger for all i know.

What i do know is it looks like the perfect candidate for a make-over. I'll be re-finishing the "potential laden" wood with many coats of tung oil and doing a proper slow rust blue to the metal parts. Is the bolt on these blued also or stainless? I won't get to inspect it in person for a week or two because i just bought it today. Looks like a prime candidate though.

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762Russian said:
I kind of like it how it looks right now; that patina is rather attractive, but I can see it being absolutely gorgeous when redone, too.

The bolts are just stainless; buff it to a silver sheen.
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It is isn't it... but im still perfecting my slow rust blue tequnique and that was the sole reason for this purchase. It will likely end up in the EE when im done with it... but you never know. About 1 out of every 5 gun i redo seems to get stuck to me. :D
 
This is my Cooey Model 39 which I bought for 5 bucks in 1970.
Back then,I cut down and reshaped the wood to mimmick a straight english
stock and gave it a few coats of Tru-Oil to bring out the figure. I tuned the
trigger to a 1/2 lb. pull and thinned out the front sight blade to a fine edge.
The next thing I did was replace the stock screw with a Robertson machine
screw that I cut and shaped to fit.
I've shot more critters and targets with this rifle than any other that I've
owned and it still shoots as good as when I first got it.
Cooeys are good,honest & accurate rifles if well tuned and cared for.

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Thought I break up the refinished-to-stock picture thread with what I happen to think is one of Bubba's best!

Definitely not for everyone, but someone (not me) went to a lot of trouble to create this tactical Cooey 64. Let me know what you guys think. I just picked it up, gave it a flat black paint job (was a sickly OD green) and added a scope.

It was actually pretty well done. The stock is bedded to the action and there's a red dot built into it! It uses 1911 grips (it's sporting a pair of rubberized camo ones right now).


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Well,

This first pair ain't Cooeys, they're actually a Mossberg 640.....it used to be a butt-stock tube mag fed....now it's been modified a "bit"....and a 10/22....

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This second project (on hold due to deployment) is actually a Cooey model 64.....with a dress-up kit.

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NS
 
Alright! (rubbing hands) Step 1 in the saga... Re-cutting the front sight dovetail. the original was so badly canted it made me dizzy to shoot.

I used a series of files to get it just right, including a triangle file with one side ground flat to get under the "overhang" of the ...tail? turned out bang on the money. The sight is snug as a bug in a rug.
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Next step was to cut off the old one and re-crown. No problem.
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Next is a complete refinish. Metal gets the slow rust blue next week or this weekend maybe... and the wood gets a tung oil makeover. I may even do a bit of checkering on the wood if im feeling... persistant. I don't much have the patience for that practice anymore though. but we shall see. I'll add new pics as the project progresses.
 
Done. I tried to keep it authentic as possible since I really dont like when a rifle "looks" refinished with crappy cold bluing and super shiny tru-oiled stocks. I wanted it to look like it just came down off the eatons sales rack... And I think I achieved that look to my satisfaction. Although I have to admit it isn't my best work. I got a little rushed on the bluing and got a couple areas of very very slight coppering as you can see on the trigger guard, but that's it and all in all it looks fantastic nonetheless. The steel is rust blued and the stocks have a soaking coat of tung oil and one grain filler coat of tung oil and sanding dust mix, then sanded off lightly with 800 grit.
Next up is a shorty ACE 1 if I can find one.

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Guy JR said:
Wow Mikeystew, The rifle looks great.
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Haha... Thanks Guy, I got my hands dirty on this one! If you check my earlier post you will see I managed to re-cut the front sight dovetail and I was also able to sand the stock straight, in the foreend anyhow. Turned out much better than I expected. Thanks again for the rifle Guy, it's a great addition to my collection and a tack driver to boot.

Oh, and the barrel turned out to not be bent, rather the taper was cut drastically on the top only and not the bottom for whatever reason. Cooey messed up this gun big time at the factory but I was also able to correct that issue and the others, and put things in their right place overall. A gun this pretty deserves at least that much.
 
Mike--you did a very fine job and breathed new life into that Cooey. I can't remember, did you say this gun is marked Winchester on it. If so, that could explain the issues from factory with your gun. For the most part, quality really went down after Winchester took over because of their cost cutting/saving measures.
 
gunsaholic said:
Mike--you did a very fine job and breathed new life into that Cooey. I can't remember, did you say this gun is marked Winchester on it. If so, that could explain the issues from factory with your gun. For the most part, quality really went down after Winchester took over because of their cost cutting/saving measures.
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It does not say Winchester, it just says ranger... However I guess it could have been a winchester built ranger, I don't know. It does not have any serial number on it either.
This pic shows the only markings... I don't know if maybe the font style is any indication of it's age.

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Hard to say when it was made but I'm betting after the Winchester take over , between 1961 and 1966. Serial numbers weren't used on Cooeys before 1968 and 1966 was the last year for the model 75. Winchester took over in 1961.
 
gunsaholic said:
Hard to say when it was made but I'm betting after the Winchester take over , between 1961 and 1966. Serial numbers weren't used on Cooeys before 1968 and 1966 was the last year for the model 75. Winchester took over in 1961.
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Oh well... This wouldn't be the first time I've had to fix winchesters' fcuk up's.
At least they cut the rifling properly, this thing is accurate as it could be with open sights. Phenominal. Shame about Winchester deflowering such a proud Canadian icon like that though. Bastids and their corporate shenanigans. The same goes about Remington bending marlin over... Or more correctly CEREBUS. Again, this is why for me older guns are more interesting. Because they were made at a time when craftsmen built every piece with pride of workmanship and that is reflected in the quality of the firearm. Seems nowadays QC is non existent, or I guess what I mean to say is that the quality control has been left up to the consumer to finish the guns the way they should have been finished in the first place... Shame.
 
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