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Brownells Gunsmith Corner
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Gunsmithing Lessons for the Hobbyist
By
Paul Mazan
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Many firearm enthusiasts would like to work on his or her own guns as a hobby. In fact for a lot of us it is a real source of relaxation and we take a lot of pride in our ability to restore an old beat up gun to something we are proud to own and enjoy. However, none of us starts with the kind of skill it takes to do that and, many just simply don’t know where or how to acquire that skill without attending a gunsmithing school. If you have the chance to attend a school by all means do so but the majority of us simply have family obligations or other circumstances that will not allow us to put our lives on hold and go to school full time. Can you teach yourself to repair and restore most guns on your own? Absolutely, folks have been doing it for years. Do you need a shop full of Lathes, Mills, and special tools? No, not at all as long as you understand what can be done without them. If you’ve been bitten by the bug and are interested lets take a look at a sure-fire way to learn how without spending a fortune.
You are going to need three basic things to get started. Sources of knowledge, basic tools, and oh yes, a gun or even better, guns to work on. Luckily, we all have access to a free source for all the information we need. Your local library will either have, or be able to get, through to interlibrary loan program, the basic gunsmithing books you need. You will want to buy some books like Assembly/Disassembly manuals and later books that help with more difficult jobs, but for now, the library will be an invaluable resource. Many of the tools you will need at first may already be in your toolbox. If they are not, or even if they are, pick up the Brownells catalog as soon as you can. When you do need to buy a tool, they will have it if anyone does. A good set of screwdrivers, some pin punches and a small (2 to 6 oz.) hammer (the Nylon /Brass hammer #818-600-100AD is perfect) should be enough to get you started on takedown and reassembly of most of the inexpensive guns you will want to learn on. Finally, you need a gun or two, preferably your own, to work on. Please don’t grab your great grandfathers Parker or a friend's prized hunting rifle for your first projects, you will see why shortly. Look for a single shot .22 or shotgun to start with. Pick something that is beaten up and inexpensive so that if you really make a major mistake little is lost. Then take it completely apart, clean it and reassemble it. Single shots are usually very simple mechanisms and that is exactly what you want. Now that you understand how the gun you have works and goes together decide on what projects you can perform on it before you have to move on. Take the time to make a list, put the projects in a logical order (Like installing the recoil pad before refinishing the stock), and follow your list.
Most guys will never show you their first projects. They have sold them, burned them or buried them so nobody ever sees them. But, I’m going to show you my try it gun because you can’t tell how far you have come if you can’t go back and see where you started.. When I was just out of the service I found myself with a wife, an infant son, and a low paying job. There was little money for guns, hunting trips or much of anything else but I wanted to work on guns in the worst way, and boy did I succeed! I had a Glenfield Model 60G single shot .410 that was my first shotgun and I attacked it with little skill but a lot of passion. The results of my efforts will illustrate why I told you to start on an inexpensive gun. First I decided to try refinishing the stock but once I had it stripped I saw several other 1970’s style things that the gun just had to have. Things like a rollover cheekpiece, forend tip, stock inlay and a stippled butt. That gun taught me so many valuable lessons it would be hard to list them all but I’ll highlight just a few. First when you install a forend tip, don’t use wood dowels to locate it. They absorb moisture at a different rate than the stock and will eventually crack it. Two don’t try to use a plastic milk jug for a white line spacer. They ain't really white and no glue in the world sticks to them. Three, your first recoil pad installation should be done before you finish the stock not after. A good gunsmith can fit a pad to a finished stock without damaging the finish. At this stage you probably can’t, or at least I couldn’t. Four, if your going to put an inlay in the stock it would be a good idea to have a plan for what it is supposed to add to the appearance of the gun. It appears I had no clue at the time.
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"Don't try to install a recoil pad on a finished sock until you have some experience. Here is my first attempt and I can't say it was a big success."
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"Part of the fun is trying things that you would never attempt on an expensive firearm. Unconventional, perhaps but a very functional bolt modification on an iron sighted firearm for a left-handed shooter.
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"A couple of important lessons learned. Wood dowels used to locate this tip absorbed moisture at a different rate than the stock, the result, a cracked stock. Lesson two, making a white line spacer out of a milk jug is not a good idea."
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"Seven gunsmithing lessons with at least four more possible make this a learning tool well worth the price. This is the gun that I hide in the closet and shows me how far I've come."
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On the positive side I learned to refinish a wood stock, how to inlay a piece of wood into a stock, how to reverse a safety for a left hand shooter, How to use a rasp, files, and sandpaper to reshape the stock and leave a raised cheekpiece. I also learned the basics of installing a recoil pad (The stippled butt didn’t work out so well) as well as how a little ingenuity can overcome the right handed bolt and the left handed shooter problem. The solution is not particularly pretty but it works really well. I disassembled the bolt, heated the bolt handle and bent it up 90 degrees. After the shot is fired I can reach up with my left hand, hook the bolt knob with my thumb, work the bolt, slam in another round and be back in business in about half the time it took before. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that the gun looks pretty strange and it is usually hidden in the closet next to the back door where it has accounted for countless garden pests. I keep telling myself that someday I’m going to do a first class refinishing job on this gun but somehow I like seeing where I started from so it continues to hide in the closet and account for crows, rabbits, and assorted vermin. You can be sure this is the first time I’ve ever shown anyone my first attempts at gunsmithing. But let’s count the things I was able to learn working on this one gun. Fitting a forend tip, refinishing a stock, customizing a stock, inlaying a piece of wood into the stock. Fitting a recoil pad, reversing a safety, and altering a bolt handle. That’s Seven gunsmithing lessons and there are a lot more that could be done. For example, you could fit a gripcap, install a shotgun style triggerguard, reblue the barrel and action, and checker the grip and forend. That’s four more first time jobs that this little gun can still teach someone. That’s eleven gunsmithing projects from one inexpensive single shot with very little outlay for tools and equipment. That should keep you busy in your shop for a while and the pictures should give you hope that even if you mess up a gun as badly as I did this one, you can learn from the experience.
With our first lessons out of the way we can continue our Gunsmithing education on the time payment plan. In other words when we have the money to pay for tools or accessories we make the time to do the next job. I learned the basics of checkering and stock repair on a wall hanger. A neighbor had an old double-barreled hammer shotgun hanging over his fireplace. The brand name was Barker, that’s right Barker not Parker and what a dog it was! It started out in life as an inexpensive hardware store gun and now with a cracked stock, checkering worn almost smooth, no top lever, broken firing pin bushings, and Damascus barrels it was a disaster. However, it was a gold mine of opportunity. After learning that it was just a piece of decoration and not his great grand daddy’s prized piece, I offered to refinish it for free so it would look better on the wall and he handed it to me and said “Sure”. I disassembled and cleaned it learning a little about old shotgun barrel locking methods and then started repairing the stock. Once I had glued and pinned it back together I recut the checkering one line at a time with a single line checkering cutter. Sure I had over runs and lines that didn’t always go where I wanted them to go but I was learning and the lessons were free. I cobbled together a top lever, cold blued the whole gun, refinished the stock and gave it back to my neighbor. He seemed pleased and asked me if he could use it to hunt ducks next season! I suppose that was a compliment to my work but it scared me to death. I told him he was never to attempt firing it, explained about Damascus barrels and the pressure differences between Black powder and Smokeless powder and didn’t even get around to explaining about chamber length. Disgusted with not being able to use the gun he simply gave it to me. Later I gave it to another budding gunsmith who was looking for something to experiment lengthening chambers and forcing cones on.
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"This old Stevens 311a taught me a lot about stock modification, recoil pad installation, installing reduced power springs, modifying the action to hang all the way open, and checkering. It may have also helped to get me fired from my job. I think you will all agree that wehn you look at this picture you dont even think Stevens 311."
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"A simple single shot .22 shows what it is possible to do with time and patience. Sometimes that ugly duckling just needs to have its swan let out."
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"Note the perfect fit between the forend tip and the stock. It looks like it is one piece of wood because it is. The forend tip is a fake made with a little masking tape and a black marker. If you can put tape on a stock and paint the tip you can 'instal' one just like it for nothing."
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"Plating kits from Texas Platers Supply allowed me to plate the trigger with real gold and the triggerguard with Nickel. It may or may not be to your taste but it is easy and I'm sure you can think of other parts that you would like to plate."
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If you look for projects that are affordable you may or may not always end up with shootable guns but, if you’re on a tight budget, you can learn lessons that will pay dividends in the future. Besides, tinkering with old guns is fun. You will also start accumulating a lot of parts that probably won’t fit anything else you ever own, but you never know. My first good recoil pad job and checkering projects were on a Stevens 311 double. This happened to be the second gun I ever owned so it was cowering in the back of my gun cabinet trying to hide after seeing what had happened to the .410. I stripped the stock, altered it to a straight grip by cutting the pistol grip off , reshaping the wrist and installing a used triggerguard. Then I made the forend into a splinter style, fitted a recoil pad, installed reduced power springs, altered it to hang all the way open, and then checkered and refinished the buttstock and forend. I was working for one of the larger suppliers of shooting equipment at the time and one day my boss looked at the gun and asked what I had not yet done to it. I knew he meant what other jobs could still be done to the gun but my smart mouth is closer to my lips than my better sense is and I responded. “Increase its value”, he was not amused. Some time later they let me go and still I wonder if 2 +2 equals 4 in this case.
Eventually you will want to take this hard won experience and turn it loose on something you can show off. If you have learned your lessons well on the inexpensive pieces, you will be able to turn out a job you can be proud of when you get the chance to work on something better. Over time you will accumulate the tools you need to accomplish more difficult tasks. Buying them one at a time, as needed, will help to keep the family budget intact and with experience you will be able to turn out work that you can be truly proud of. Just start small, keep it simple, progress slowly, and don’t be discouraged if those first projects look like my .410. We all had to start someplace.
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