Salt Wood Stock & a T-22

[Pressman]

This illustrates what happens when a Browing T-22 was left in its original salt wood stock for close to 50 years. It is a 1966 year of production. It is not too far gone through considerable damage was done to the barrel, some to the receiver and even more to the aluminum trigger housing and trigger guard. There is a substantial portion of rust pitting above stock line. That is likely what caused a previous owner to dis-mount the stock and try to fix the problem by lining the stock inletting with clear packing tape.

The rifle will begin cancer treatments tomorrow.

285878

[StuBach]

Thank you for introducing me to this issue that I’ve never heard of before. I just read up on this and for worried for my supervised and Auto 22. Luckily both of mine predate this process.

Good thing to know about and watch for in future purchases.

[Nueces]

What a horror. I wish I still had my 1970 T2, but was able to replace it with another before I knew about the salt wood issue. Lump in throat. Looked and found no such thing. Lucky.

[dale2242]

OK, enlighten me.
What is a "salt wood" stock?

[StuBach]

OK, enlighten me.
What is a "salt wood" stock?

I found this in a Google search that explains the issue.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/shotgunreport.com/2013/05/22/browning-salt-wood-explained/amp/

[rking22]

I have 2 Tbolts that were salt wood. My T1 I got new and found rust pitting and the paint peeling off the trigger guard after about a year( 1970). I glass bedded the stock and lived with it till college and made a new stock for it in 79, kept me out of trouble during the winter. I also made a replacement trigger guard from steel and rust blued it. The other is a T2 I bought with full knowledge of the damage, and priced accordingly. Someone had glasses this stock same as I did and it has not had anymore progression of damage in the past 10 years. They both shoot very well and the pitting is just a sad testament to a bad idea to rush wood curing. Good example of unintended consequences and knee jerk corporate decision making.

[Pressman]

rking22, I was thinking the same thing, coating the inside of the stock with Arca-Glas. It will take a lot of careful work but it should work.

Ken

[rking22]

You will need to do the same for sling swivels and buttplate screws as well. I made the floor plate because mine cracked when working it out of the bedding. I should have cleaned out the aluminum pitting and filled the pitting with epoxy to get it back to a clean shape. Is this one a T2 with the checkered stock?

[Char-Gar]

I bought a left hand T-2 in 1971 or 72. No salt wood. Two years ago, I made the sign of the cross and took it out of the wood, for the first time. Whew! Metal was pristine. I still have it.

[Pressman]

Yes, this is a T-2. There are no sling swivels and the buttplate screws are rusted in so tight they won't break loose. The trigger guard is still intact, though badly corroded. I might be able to make repairs to it with steel bed.

[StuBach]

On the locked in screws you might try some Kroil or some WD40 Rust Remover to break up the rust and free the screws?

[Texas by God]

My brother bought a T-bolt and a HighPower 7mm magnum that were pitted horribly from being stored in soft gun cases. The salt wood got to them. We glass bead blasted both and I took them to Armaloy in Ft. Worth for hard chroming, but they refused to do them( I couldn't blame them).
So, we completely glass bedded both stocks and applied GunKote on the bare metal.
They are "shooter grade"- wherever they ended up!

Sent from my SM-A716U using Tapatalk

[panhed65]

I often wonder what they were thinking in regards to the salt wood stocks. you do not need to be an engineer to know salt and fine blued steel are not a good mix. I have two salt wood Tbolts, paid what they were worth. they are both good shooters, one has the best trigger I have ever seen on a 22 and gets a lot of use around the house. have to keep the rust in check, tried to find stocks with little luck. I would be a lot happier if they were rust free, but I got them way reasonable.
Barry

[Mk42gunner]

My saltwood T-bolt story is even worse, although it did start out good.

I bought one at an estate auction fairly cheap, as a single shot, then managed to get the semi inleted Fajen stock for along with another stock for under $20. Good so far, right?

I started to work on the rifle, getting ready to finish the stock, when my Mom's dementia really took a turn for the worse. I stuck the barreled action in the Stack-on gun "safe" muzzle down.

Some time in the next year and a half while I was taking care of Mom 24/7 with no help from my brother, my roof sprung a leak. Thin steel Stackon gun cabinets are not water proof. I wouldn't even call them water resistant.

Long story short, the muzzle end of the barrel virtually disintegrated.

Eventually I may reline it and put it in the good stock; but I'm kind of .22 poor right now and have a lot more pressing projects to get to first.

Robert

[uscra112]

I find it beyond incredible that any reputable gunmaker would even dream of curing wood that way! A fourth grader would know better!

[bedbugbilly]

I bought a T-22 a number of years ago at a pawn shop in Tucson that turned out to have a saltwootd stock. General appearance it looked good but when I pulled the barrel/action - OMG! The phptos above are a good representation of what mine looked like. I ordered a nice walnut stock from a guy that made replacement stocks - been long enough that I forgot the fellow's name. The Obama 22 shortage hit, I lost interest and consigned the rifle to the LGS I use here in MI with full disclosure that it was a saltwootd Browning - whoever bought it didn't care and even after consignment fee I made $100 .

I quess the moral of the saltwootd guns is that even well known reputable companies can sometimes end up making really bad decisions.

[uscra112]

Puts me in mind of a genius V.P. Logistics at GM named Lopez who in the middle '80s negotiated a long-term contract for iron for block and head castings. "Saved the company a bundle", and he was a hero at Board meetings, but in a very few years it became apparent that the iron he bought was entirely the wrong grade for blocks. Bore wear got so bad that engines didn't even last 100k miles. He was finally fired, but not before his stupidity had hurt GM's reputation terribly. (I was there, but not until 1993 when they were still trying to dig out from that mess.)

[ebb]

Didn't Browning fix these some years ago? I am sure my friend sent back a BAR in 06 and it came back cleaned up new stock and reblued. I wonder if they will still do it?

[TyGuy]

I find it beyond incredible that any gunmaker WORTH THEIR SALT would even dream of curing wood that way! A fourth grader would know better!

I fixed that for you… [smilie=l:

[1hole]

I don't KNOW how Browning's management came to use salt treated wood for stocks but I can guess.

In the 60s-70s-80s the college's craze was to churn out Master of Business Administration degrees (MBA). Big company's like Browning/FN board of directors couldn't hire enough of 'em and they were given immense power to make fast profits. Still, they were just ignorant green college kids with the usual inflated college kid egos. They rarely knew a thing about the business they oversaw so they took every chance to squeeze money out of the operations.

Let one of them iggorant young'uns read about a "marvelous new cheap, fast method of curing wood" and the rest (rust?) falls in place.

[bedbugbilly]

ebb - IIRC, I think I heard tat they did do sone sort of call in on the saltwootd - but what I heard was hearsay and I have never taken the time to find out much on it. The rifle I had certainly showed no signs of repairs or stock replacement and if there was a recall, I would imagine that there were a whole bunch of them that were never sent in for any kind of repairs.

On the one I had, it was almost unbelievable the amount of metal loss on the underside of the barrel and action where there was metal to wood contact. It was still shootable but not something I was real comfortable with. The stock finish was almost non-existent and when I bought it, my plans were to refinish the stock until I found out about the saltwootd issue. I bought the replacement stock which was very nice, but like I said, when the 22 crunch came on I decided to sell it and go on to other projects.

The T bolt action was interesting and I.m sure that I would have liked it - I'm not knocking Browmimg firearms in any way other than someone's idea of using saltwootd stocks. I have fond memories of a friend's Browning "Sweet 16" that I sometimes hunted pheasants with when I was a kid - all you had to do was point and the birds fell. I had sold my small collection of vintage 22 rifles by the time I bought the T bolt - I probably would have kept it and restocked it if I still had the collection at that time just because of the unique T bolt design.

[uscra112]

Good one, tyguy!

[Pressman]

Nice comment all, I do like the T-Bolt action, it's super easy to operate and plain fun to shoot. Accuracy is just however so-so. I think that is caused by the stock and receiver fit and how they interact. Since this is a shooter only, I am going to look at that fit and what I can do about it. I can bed the receiver, and about 3 inches in front of the receiver, possibly I can fit a rear receiver screw, which would be a significant improvement. And some other ideas.