Un-tapping a receiver...

[Skippy]

A friend I moose hunt with has a sporter Springfield 1903. He wants (after my pestering) to put it into military configuration. I've heard of people having the holes filled and reblued without leaving much of a scar.
Anyone have any successful pics of their smith's work on such a job.

Also, the foreward mounts obscure the Patent and model info sort of like in the photo I rigged up:

How feasibly would it be to have a gunsmith or jewler touch up the dilled holes to make the words legible again?

 

[RePete]

You can take a screw, LocTite in place (red), cut it exposed off, refinish the screw top and then refinish the receiver.

There may be a colour difference where the screw is because of the different metals.

 

[trevj]

x2 on the screw fill.

If you want to invest a lot into it, for a restoration, there are probably guys out there that will take your money, but for practical purposes, screws are it.

To weld the holes, will also require that the smith has the proper stamp or stamps to reproduce the original markings, as well as, potentially, the ability to redo the heat treating on the entire receiver, then refinish it.

It's never going to be "original" again. Choose the path of least further damage...

Filling the holes with screws is well within the scope of a decent gunsmith, while redoing the receiver is specialty work, and would be very expensive.

Cheers
Trev

 

[bill c68]

I used screws to fill in the sight holes on an M70, looks pretty good but you can definitely see the screws. If the blueing is dark (as in black) you might get away with JB weld and some touch up paint.

Or for that matter, the gun could be painted with one of the new gun coatings on the market and you could make the scars disappear.

 

[englishman_ca]

Tig welding over the top of a screw is the proper way. Very localised heat but no guarantee that it would not effect the heat treatment of the parent metal. Re-heat treating can be done in the shop if one had the equipment (kiln) , but it is the expertise that is needed to do it right. Not something for the average tinkerer. Might be costly to get it done outside, the rifle will need to be stripped down to bare receiver, again requiring specialist knowledge and tools.

So what is the home hobbiest to do? Here is a method that I have had good success with that can be done at the bench in the average shop, without heat effecting the metal.

Use a drill press to neatly countersink the threaded hole. Doesn't have to go very deep, but just a little larger than the thread's major diameter. Then run a countersunk head screw down into the hole very tight with loctite. Make sure that the screw shank doesn't bottom out and that the underside of the head bears on the edge of the hole. The head can be buzzed down with a Dremmel and then carefully finished by hand to profile. Should only be a feint circle visible if screw is cranked in good and tight. Blueing might show different colours for the different metals. But if a painted coating is applied, the fix will then be invisible.

Perhaps a jeweler who does hand engraving could then repair the lettering?

 

[Claven2]

Send it to Gunco in Ottawa. They can tig it and control the heating. Shouldn't need to be re-treated for a localized skim weld over an inset screw. They can also re-cut the markings as they have engravers on retainer.

They CANNOT do parkerizign though. For that, try Valley Gunsmithing in Petawawa.

 

[Skippy]

THanks for the replies guys. FIlling the holes is paramount, repairing the lettering is secondary, but I'll mention it to the fellows at Gunco and see if it's feasible on this rifle.