bigted
11-18-2013, 07:35 PM
took the moose by the horn and did the deed of MAKING my own 1884 carbine.
got this nice old trapdoor at a good price and fooled with it for awhile but never felt the love. it just never took a place in my heart. sooo ... as a previous owner already took the collector value away with the scrubbing with what looks like sand paper to the outside of the barrel and allowed the bore to rust and the firing pin was stuck and someone hammered the block to try to un-stick it and on and on and ... on!
however the saving grace on this old girl was and is that it is in very good mechanical shape. she is very tight in the block area and the chamber came alive with some elbo grease and the barrel bore is looking better as I shoot paperpatched thru it. small pits throughout but it seems to want to shoot.
so ... taking this old klunker ... I began to serf the web to find good pictures of carbines in the trapdoor so as to be able to do a realistic job of this butcher task.
I began with cutting the barrel off at 20.5 inch's. then I cut the stock ahead of the barrel band and band clip to be able to form the for end to a realistic lookalike of the original production. I filed and sanded till it looked rite and began with the dark stain. not desiring to "cover up" anything I just wanted to try to blend this "patch" with the rest of the stock. acquiring a hardwood dowel of 3/8ths inch I began to carve it with my hand file to conform to the groove in the stock that previously held the ramrod. when I had the rite color that I felt blended in with the rest of the stock , I gave it a heavy dose of Birchwood oil finish and allowed it to dry completely. after the stock was completely dry i used some 400 grit paper to take that ugly shine away and after doing so wound up with a pretty good blend so I dressed it with gun oil and a good rub. still a bit disappointed with the scratch's on the under side of the sanded barrel but I take heart that when done I will strip it and brown the whole thing [metal parts]. another thing I am faced with is doing a "next best thing" front sight. I super glued an unlikely looking sight I had laying around of the rite height I wanted to try so I could shoot it and find out where it would print on target.
loading some 407 grain patcher boolits I stuffed 70 grains GOEX 2F powder in the case and covered it with a 1/8th felt wad. compressing this so my patched boolits would chamber I proceeded to load 3 of them for an experiment.
stepping outside I squinted thru the snowstorm blowing around and loaded the first round. pulling it in tight as I expected it to be a thumper in the now shortened and a bunch liter rifle ... I yanked the trigger. with the beginning of a huge smile I realized that my expectation was way worse then the actual recoil. gladly I stuffed the other two in the hungry breech of this little dandy and shot into the bank along the house. shots at 20 to 30 yards were rite on target so I guess the front sight height is good. will shoot some more with 500 grain greasers and at 50 and 100 yards before I "un-glue" this funky sight and design a good solid front sight that blends well with this old ... new girl.
this is going to be a treat and I am now a little more in love with this old abused rifle. cant wait for the spring melt to try the buffington sight at longer range.
that be my tale and photo's will follow when I get this embarrassing front sight off there and finish with a more cosmetically correct front sight. what fun !!!
got this nice old trapdoor at a good price and fooled with it for awhile but never felt the love. it just never took a place in my heart. sooo ... as a previous owner already took the collector value away with the scrubbing with what looks like sand paper to the outside of the barrel and allowed the bore to rust and the firing pin was stuck and someone hammered the block to try to un-stick it and on and on and ... on!
however the saving grace on this old girl was and is that it is in very good mechanical shape. she is very tight in the block area and the chamber came alive with some elbo grease and the barrel bore is looking better as I shoot paperpatched thru it. small pits throughout but it seems to want to shoot.
so ... taking this old klunker ... I began to serf the web to find good pictures of carbines in the trapdoor so as to be able to do a realistic job of this butcher task.
I began with cutting the barrel off at 20.5 inch's. then I cut the stock ahead of the barrel band and band clip to be able to form the for end to a realistic lookalike of the original production. I filed and sanded till it looked rite and began with the dark stain. not desiring to "cover up" anything I just wanted to try to blend this "patch" with the rest of the stock. acquiring a hardwood dowel of 3/8ths inch I began to carve it with my hand file to conform to the groove in the stock that previously held the ramrod. when I had the rite color that I felt blended in with the rest of the stock , I gave it a heavy dose of Birchwood oil finish and allowed it to dry completely. after the stock was completely dry i used some 400 grit paper to take that ugly shine away and after doing so wound up with a pretty good blend so I dressed it with gun oil and a good rub. still a bit disappointed with the scratch's on the under side of the sanded barrel but I take heart that when done I will strip it and brown the whole thing [metal parts]. another thing I am faced with is doing a "next best thing" front sight. I super glued an unlikely looking sight I had laying around of the rite height I wanted to try so I could shoot it and find out where it would print on target.
loading some 407 grain patcher boolits I stuffed 70 grains GOEX 2F powder in the case and covered it with a 1/8th felt wad. compressing this so my patched boolits would chamber I proceeded to load 3 of them for an experiment.
stepping outside I squinted thru the snowstorm blowing around and loaded the first round. pulling it in tight as I expected it to be a thumper in the now shortened and a bunch liter rifle ... I yanked the trigger. with the beginning of a huge smile I realized that my expectation was way worse then the actual recoil. gladly I stuffed the other two in the hungry breech of this little dandy and shot into the bank along the house. shots at 20 to 30 yards were rite on target so I guess the front sight height is good. will shoot some more with 500 grain greasers and at 50 and 100 yards before I "un-glue" this funky sight and design a good solid front sight that blends well with this old ... new girl.
this is going to be a treat and I am now a little more in love with this old abused rifle. cant wait for the spring melt to try the buffington sight at longer range.
that be my tale and photo's will follow when I get this embarrassing front sight off there and finish with a more cosmetically correct front sight. what fun !!!