Story about your vintage rifle project?

I would enjoy hearing about your vintage rifle project. Like hard to find parts replaced, parts made or repairs to come up with a shooter. Fellow shooters that helped you through the project!
I am in the middle of a project right now with a 07 Winchester.351SL. Besides repairing the wood forearm which was in pieces, I had to come up with a barrel with a good bore, front and rear sights, firing pin, trigger spring, recoil spring, buffer, buffer washer, sleeve spring, sear spring, hammer link, magazine and butt plate screws. The seller would not disclose most of the problems with the gun when I asked him. So I ended up with a pig in a poke. I guess you can say that the project adventure is priceless plus my own reward in knowing what I went through to get the final shooter. Not to mention what I am still learning in the process. My sincere thanks to Maxreloader (Brett), fellow member, for giving me a couple of trigger parts. Not forgetting Battis (Dave) who has been my guide through it all, sharing his knowledge of WSLs. I still have to get with my long time shooting buddy, Jim, to help me with the barrel swap. /Chris

Anytime my friend! Glad to have helped get your girl goin'.

About 25-30 years ago I bought a bubba'd model of 1917 Winchester Enfield in 30-06. Had a excellent bore and barrel chopped back to 22" and cut down stock. Took every thing down to bare metal (crappy cold blue job) and polished everything by hand then used a home made buffer to finish polish the metal. Stuck in the safe and it sat there for years. Finally sent it out for repolishing, bead blast, D&T for scope bases and blued. Had to have the oblong cut in the rear receiver ring plugged and had made up a plug for it. Took about three weeks and came out really nice. Guess what, haven't even shot it yet. Procrastination is my middle name. Have a Czech VZ 24 action set aside for a project and has a mix of parts, VZ24 action, Argentine trigger assembly, German 98 bolt assembly. And a choice of either Persian carbine barrel in 8mm mauser or Argentine 1909 barrel in 7.65x53. Frank

I am 90% done with a 45-70 Siamese Mauser that I have been dinking around on.

My best vintage rifle so far has been my VZ24. I have told the story here before but I will recap briefly.

25 or so years ago I was in my favorite gun store. They literally had barrels of 8mm Mausers on sale. As I was looking through them I found a short, stubby one. The owner said "That's a 7mm." It was a South American cavalry type carbine with a bent bolt. I bought it for almost nothing.

I had to replace a broken firing pin but after that I shot it a few times then put it away.

Fast forward 20 years and I decide to try and do something with it. The generous fellows on this forum steered me towards the correct diameter mold for the European sized bore. Al at NOE set me up. The results were stupendous.

My now adult son took on the cosmetic part of the job. I ordered an unfinished stock fromBoyds. He sanded it and applied 6 coats of Tru Oil. He also did a pretty good cold bluing job with Oxpho Blue.

Because of how little money I have in it and the amount of hand labor my son put in it it is my favorite rifle to shoot. The fact that it is accurate is a bonus and a testimony to the knowledge base and generosity of this forum.

Here she is now:Attachment 211119Attachment 211120

I have a stalled project in the form of a Russian contract Winchester 1895 that was molested by a Czech version of Bubba (it has Czech proofs). I had to find a replacement barrel, the original was set back with threads cut to small a diameter. Installed a commercial rifle forearm lug and screw to hold the lower forearm, tossed the mutilated upper wood and odd attachment hardware, and installed a #21 receiver sight. I put it back in the safe when the almost worn out new barrel did not shoot very well, but I think it is time to pull it back out and get it finished starting with a rebore.

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Originally Posted by texassako

I have a stalled project in the form of a Russian contract Winchester 1895 that was molested by a Czech version of Bubba (it has Czech proofs). I had to find a replacement barrel, the original was set back with threads cut to small a diameter. Installed a commercial rifle forearm lug and screw to hold the lower forearm, tossed the mutilated upper wood and odd attachment hardware, and installed a #21 receiver sight. I put it back in the safe when the almost worn out new barrel did not shoot very well, but I think it is time to pull it back out and get it finished starting with a rebore.

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Perhaps a 9.3x54R? We need pics!

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Originally Posted by Texas by God

Perhaps a 9.3x54R? We need pics!

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JES has a 35 Russian reamer; so more of a 9x54r.

That's even better.

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