A project rifle

[amcardon]

I just got in a stock from them as well, for a rifle I couldn't find a stock anywhere for... Great price and good looking wood, glad yours came out so nice. Feel like posting up more pics? Out of curiosity, how much work did it take to fit your rifle to the stock? I haven't had a chance to check fit at all yet.

 

[mightymouse]

I had to sand the barrel channel to free-float the barrel, and remove a little wood where the action seats, but overall it was not hard to fit it to the rifle. I think it was advertised as 95% finished. Of course I had to sand it down and apply the finish coats. I'll try to add some more pics in a day or two.

 

[mightymouse]

Here's a view of the bottom metal, as modified for single shot use. It is easy to see where metal was welded over the rectangular hole for the magazine.

 

[mightymouse]

Here's another pic:

 

[D. Hargrove]

Good looking little gun, thanks for the pics.

 

[BlackRiflesBoy]

That stock looks nice! Good work.

 

[mtnboomer]

Very nice job! Especially converting it to a single shot.

Reminds me of my first .22 rebuild. It's a Marlin 25 that was an absolute POS when I got it. The story is that my Dad had a small engine repair business outside of Eufaula [BIL has it now] and one of his customers was an old man who never had any money so he would barter the repair work on his machines. One day he brought an old, beat up .22 in as a payment and my Dad thought it would be something I could fix up or part out.



While it's hard to see in the pictures, the action had no blueing left, the muzzle had areas actually ground down somehow, the bore looked like a rusty sewer pipe, and the hardwood stock was so dried out that the grain was starting to separate in places. And those were the good points!

Well, I removed the barrel and got a new Glenfield barrel from Numrich. I then soaked all the metal parts in Evapo-Rust. The stock was almost trash, but I couldn't find a new one, and used ones were outrageous. It looked bad at the start, but when I chemically removed the old finish - it looked even worse! I sanded the stock and used wood filler in the grain separations. I then put on several coats of wood primer and sanded each one. The stock finish was going to be tricky as I couldn't stain it and I didn't want to simply paint it. I finally found a textured paint that I liked.




I decided to leave the bolt in the white, except for the bolt cap. The metal finish is numerous coats of Oxpho-Blue. Three coats of the textured paint with a light sanding with 400-grit, and three coats of clear coat. Because of the age and condition of the stock, I did a little action bedding with epoxy putty. It now wears a 4x scope and will shoot a nice, tight group at 25 yards.