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A complete waste of time, but I proved my point.
You can use this for the club flyer if you want...
Two Moons Challenge
I was sitting peacefully minding my own business when two malicious miscreants who shall remain unnamed ( Thank you Don and Mick) came up to me and one threw a mass of rust and dirt in my lap. On closer inspection the heap was a CVA (Confederate Virginia Armory??? ) kit gun that had been assembled with a horseshoe rasp and a cold chisel and then buried in the back yard for about a hundred years. The gun was rusted solid and one wise acre commented, "Lets see Two Moons fix that, I'll bet a hundred bucks that one will never fire again". At the time I was inclined to agree.
I took the gun home and thinking I might salvage some parts I dumped it into a bucket of Kroil for about 3 months. Whe I took it out I was able to pound out the wedge and tapped the barrel off the frame. Just for fun I ran a brush through the bore and flushed out GREASE! The bore had been greased and was just about perfect. Well that did it. Since the gun was a kit gun and the original owner had never even tried to finish the gun there was meat to work with.
Off to the lathe, I first made a mandrel and then chucked up the cylinder and trued it up and turned off about 3 thousands of surface. I then took a backer and polished the cylinder, and used emery on a dowel to polish the flutes. I did ream the chambers to 278 with a reamer to get a smooth finish for the ball seat, this should work with a 380 ball. A couple hours later I had a nice smooth shiny cylinder. Off and running... I draw filed the barrel and sanded it to 220 grit with backers made from scrap maple. ( to get an even finish you always use a backer even on rounds. I make mine from maple scrap about 8" long and slit on one end to hold the emery cloth. )
Polishing the rammer assembly went ok and when done only the smallest pits still remained.
The frame had never been properly finished and was still mostly rough casting. Rather than make a fixture to hole it in the milling machine I clamped it to the bench and worked it down with files. ( Hint: If you want your file work to come out flat don’t just hold the file by the handle, put either you fore finger along the file or put your off hand on the front to keep the file from rocking) When the frame was flat and the casting marks gone I then started with emery and worked it down to 220 and then finished on a buffing wheel. I will note that if you don't have a buffing wheel (also known as a parts thrower) The final polish can be done just as well with steel wool. ( Steel wool comes from metal sheep who feed in iron rich ground)
When it came time to finished the frame I put the grips into the frame and filed , sanded and buffed those right with the frame. This gave an almost seamless fit, except where the fellow with the rast had attacked first. As you can see in Photo #1 the gun was looking good on the outside but...
Inside most of the small parts and springs had rusted away. In addition the previous abuser only owned two screwdrivers, too big and too small. The big one was hammered into the screw slots till it fit well enough to burr the heads good and the small one broke off and was later made into a small cold chisel, useful for boogering the inside of the frame. The screw heads that could be saved were put in a swedge block and swedged into shape and the slots re cut. The hammer notches were cleaned and stoned and the trigger/sear was cleaned and recut. The hand and spring, the locking bolt and the bolt spring were replaced along with the main spring, total parts cost with shipping was right at $40. These parts were all fitted and the trigger pull was set at 2.5#. The front sight was removed and a new sight dovetailed into the barrel and the rear notch on the hammer opened up. The gun can now be set for windage and the front sight should file down to a perfect dead on hold at 20 yards. The last step was a coat of cold blue. I was going to slow rust blue the gun and I may do this later, right now I really don't want to fire up the humidity cabinet. The bottom line is $40 worth of parts and 16 hours of labor. Now since I charge $15 and hour for labor in the shop I figure this gun is now worth $280 dollars and it looks ALMOST as nice as the one on the internet for $125.00. Did I mention I am a bohunk?
Oh yes I did fire 5 shots from the gun just to make sure and it DOES shoot, where's my hundred bucks?
