bigted
08-05-2018, 11:31 AM
Have been gathering parts and "building" a Winchester 1873 carbine in 38 WCF cal. Have most of the parts , however, i get impatient and this is the case here. I do not desire to further "bubba" my project and seems some parts are going to take awhile to locate.
SOOO,
I located a '73' complete shooter that left the factory as a 28 inch custom barreled rifle which for some reason has "LOST" 3 inch of its original length and some body has gotten handy with a "cleaning" job on all external metal but for some reason left the wood as is.
She is a great and solid shooter with a better then average bore ... definitely a shooter which is what i desired.
Buying some 38 WCF brass and a Lee die set i set about loading some ammo with lee's 175 grain boolits and some old Cartridge goex powder i am just about done with. I just desired to make this 130+ year old rifle come back to life.
First i took it , carefully , down to parade rest being very careful to fit my screw driver set to the screw heads. Picking out 100 years of dirt out of the screw slots with a plastic pick , some screws were kinda stuck and required some finesse to persuade the reluctant buggers to release.
Inside i find that the hammer/trigger plate being very filthy with thankfully no rust to mention and after cleaning and oiling the parts i shimmed the trigger return spring to get a bit lighter trigger pull. The bolt was crudded up but the firing pin came, with reluctance, out and also was packed with old oily crud but again no rust.
All in all i found a working safe rifle that screamed SHOOT ME PLEASE!!! Sooo ... i did.
Kinda anti climactic at the first trigger pull. Such a heavy rifle and some 35 grains cartridge powder and some 45 years expectation culminated in a nice loud boom with the resultant cloud of great smellin powder smoke and NO RECOIL!!! I mean none. I have shot 22 magnum rifles with more recoil then this old sweetie.
Accuracy? Well i will just say i could prolly kill a buck at 50 or maybe 75 yards but it will take some messin to get it to shoot some tighter groups BUT all in all i feel privileged to have this old sweet heart adopted for a spell. Who knows where it will go from me but it is being enjoyed by this ol man. Do not know her history nor the stories it could tell but it sure talk's to me.
SOOO,
I located a '73' complete shooter that left the factory as a 28 inch custom barreled rifle which for some reason has "LOST" 3 inch of its original length and some body has gotten handy with a "cleaning" job on all external metal but for some reason left the wood as is.
She is a great and solid shooter with a better then average bore ... definitely a shooter which is what i desired.
Buying some 38 WCF brass and a Lee die set i set about loading some ammo with lee's 175 grain boolits and some old Cartridge goex powder i am just about done with. I just desired to make this 130+ year old rifle come back to life.
First i took it , carefully , down to parade rest being very careful to fit my screw driver set to the screw heads. Picking out 100 years of dirt out of the screw slots with a plastic pick , some screws were kinda stuck and required some finesse to persuade the reluctant buggers to release.
Inside i find that the hammer/trigger plate being very filthy with thankfully no rust to mention and after cleaning and oiling the parts i shimmed the trigger return spring to get a bit lighter trigger pull. The bolt was crudded up but the firing pin came, with reluctance, out and also was packed with old oily crud but again no rust.
All in all i found a working safe rifle that screamed SHOOT ME PLEASE!!! Sooo ... i did.
Kinda anti climactic at the first trigger pull. Such a heavy rifle and some 35 grains cartridge powder and some 45 years expectation culminated in a nice loud boom with the resultant cloud of great smellin powder smoke and NO RECOIL!!! I mean none. I have shot 22 magnum rifles with more recoil then this old sweetie.
Accuracy? Well i will just say i could prolly kill a buck at 50 or maybe 75 yards but it will take some messin to get it to shoot some tighter groups BUT all in all i feel privileged to have this old sweet heart adopted for a spell. Who knows where it will go from me but it is being enjoyed by this ol man. Do not know her history nor the stories it could tell but it sure talk's to me.