My son in law (My wife's son, it's both our second marriage.) came to me with a problem. He had "these two old guns that were my Dad's and I need to sell them, I am short on cash, need to pay bills" situation. I took a look at the two old guns and realized he wouldn't get much money for them. They weren't expensive guns when new and they'd been used hard and put up "wet" just way too many times.
The guns were an H&R Topper single shot shotgun in .410 and a Remington Targetmaster 510 .22 caliber single shot with a walnut stock. The wood on both guns was in bad shape, worked hard and stored poorly. The shotgun's birch stock reddish brown finish was peeling and moldy. The receiver and barrel were pitted with rust on the exterior and the action wouldn't lockup to the barrel properly. The rifle's walnut stock reddish brown finish was also peeling and moldy. The receiver and barrel were pitted with rust on the exterior and the bolt handle was very loose and needed to be re-staked badly.
I realized he wasn't going to get much of nothing for either firearm, certainly not enough to help him with his debts. So I told him I would see what I could do with the guns and in the mean time, what was his exact financial situation. It wasn't good. I won't go into major details, but he needed bill money, was out of a job and his wife had gotten drunk playing cards at her friends house and driven their only vehicle up a tree, so he had no way to get to work.
So I paid a good chunk of his bills, bought him some groceries and some baby care stuff and helped him buy a "get back and forth to work car." Because his father was deceased and since I'm the only Daddy he's got now, I did what a Father would do for his son. Got him back on his feet enough to get back to work. I just heard he and family have moved to housing they can afford and both have jobs and are working now, so things appear to be improving. If I never see the money back, it was money well spent in my mind.
In the meantime, here were these two old guns that belonged to his Father. I suspect he didn't really want to sell them, but it was his last recourse at the time. My philosophy is a man shouldn't have to sell his Father's guns, as those of some of his memories of his Father.
So I broke both guns down, cleaned them and evaluated. Both barrels were in good shape and the mechanicals underneath the rust were okay. I decided to restore both guns.
I just finished with the shotgun. I stripped the nasty old finish off the wood and discovered some nice birch underneath with some interesting grain, if finished right. After cleaning up the stock, I made some "Finn" pine tar/turpentine/raw linseed oil mix and finished the stock with the mix. It came out beautifully and is now water proof as well. I haven't yet, but I've got some bee's wax, so I'm going to do the 1/3 Finn wax mix and rub that on as well.
The metal I decided couldn't be polished to look good blued and I don't have the facility to color case harden, so I decided to sand blast and paint with Duracoat flat black, which finishes into a nice "soft" semi-gloss black. I pulled the action down, cleaned every thing up, painted the receiver and reassembled. I cleaned the barrel locking mechanism built into the barrel underlug and worked it until it began to lock up properly, then sand blasted and painted the barrel with Duracoat with a matching color to the receiver.
Here's a few pics of the shotgun:
I'm now onto repairing the rifle's stock (It has extra sling "holes," some cracks, some splitting and needs refinishing. Once I do that, I plan to parkerize the rifle since like the shotgun, the metal is too rough to polish and blue. I must admit, I'm not a big fan of sandblasting and blueing.
Once the firearms are refinished, I'm going to hold onto them and give them back to the son this Christmas. In the box will be a simple note: "A man shouldn't have to sell his Father's guns. Merry Christmas."
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