My grandfather passed away 20+ years ago and upon his death I was give his single shot H&R 12 gauge and my younger brother was given his Marlin. My grand father was a hard working farmer that expected every tool that he owned to be able to be worked as hard as him. I can not remember a time when both the shotgun and the rifle were not hanging in the back window of his farm truck. The shotgun had the forearm taped up and the rifle had the buttstock taped up. As I grew older I made the repairs to the shotgun forearm and put the gun up. I bring old girl out every now and then and take it squirrel hunting, clean it and put it back up. Due to family situations that sometimes occur I did not stay in touch with my younger brother much and we kind of drifted apart. This last Christmas season, I made it a point to go see my brother and mother. While there he asked if I still did any gunstock work. I stated that I had not done any in awhile but might consider it and asked what did he have in mind. He said "Grandpa's gun's buttstock had been broken by a cousin during deer season". He had gotten a replacement buttstock but couldn't find anyone to fit it for him.
Well, I have it on the bench now and I am pretty excited about getting the rifle back in operation. I'd like to detail the road to recovery here with a few progress pictures along the way.
My first reaction upon dis-assembly is: "Holy Cow! this thing has never been cleaned". I found enough brass cartridge shavings to fill the palm of my hand and the oil on the internals has transformed into Cosmoline. I'll run the parts through the UT cleaner using kerosene to break down the dried oils.
The stock wood seems to be a fair grade of wood but I do believe someone attempted to fit this wood already and has added to the workload by removing too much in the wrong places.
Regards,
Everett