What would you do with a rare gun in bad condition?

Legion489 · Aug 23, 2020

Andy54Hawken said:
If it was mine...
I'd remove any active rust...
Lightly clean the rifle without removing any patina...
Repair any cracks in the stock that are likely to continue to split or enlarge....
Then just leave the rifle alone...except to maintain it as is.
Andy

What I was going to say. Or contact Steve Mohler (pronounced Miller) Gunsmithing. Top-notch work and "reasonable" prices when quality is factored in.

raftman · Sep 7, 2020

On a related note, I shot this thing today for the first time. It actually shot well, better than my several nicer, newer Carcanos.

ZigZagZeke · Sep 7, 2020

mm93 said:
I have a friend who is so anal about originality that when he found an Egyptian Rolling Block carbine he was taking it down for general cleaning, and discovered a void in the buttstock under the buttplate. Inside was a handful of fine sand from Egypt that had somehow worked it's way into that void. After cleaning, and oiling the mechanics, he reassembled the gun, and poured the sand back into the buttstock before reinstalling the buttplate!
That's taking things way farther than I ever have, or would. But some guys REALLY appreciate original history!

When I sold my 40 year old Corvette one of the tongue in cheek "pluses" about it was that the original spare and never been on the ground and still had the original air in it.

ZigZagZeke · Sep 7, 2020

raftman said:
On a related note, I shot this thing today for the first time. It actually shot well, better than my several nicer, newer Carcanos.

I'd conserve it. Clean it up and stop any further deterioration, but it's in good enough shape that restoring it would detract from its value.

Now this old Remington rolling block that had been in the family since it was bought new in 1880 was a candidate for full restoration because it had been through a cabin fire and had no finish, a sewer pipe barrel, and hardly any wood left on it. A few thousand dollars later:

Member 38805 · Sep 8, 2020

ZigZagZeke said:
I'd conserve it. Clean it up and stop any further deterioration, but it's in good enough shape that restoring it would detract from its value.

Now this old Remington rolling block that had been in the family since it was bought new in 1880 was a candidate for full restoration because it had been through a cabin fire and had no finish, a sewer pipe barrel, and hardly any wood left on it. A few thousand dollars later:
View attachment 746684

That's one of those that is a no brainer whether to restore or not. I've restored a half dozen or more old single shot rifles, and none of them gave me any 2nd thoughts about whether to restore them or not. They were either already altered and needed to be redone to make them correct. Or they were missing enough parts to not be concerned a restoration would hurt value.
I've got maybe 16 old Rolling Block Sporting Rifles, and two are restorations I did. Both came to me as just complete actions, so easy to decide to build them back to what I wanted. One became a pistol grip .40-50SS, and the other a straight grip in .40-65 Win.

ZigZagZeke · Sep 8, 2020

mm93 said:
That's one of those that is a no brainer whether to restore or not. I've restored a half dozen or more old single shot rifles, and none of them gave me any 2nd thoughts about whether to restore them or not. They were either already altered and needed to be redone to make them correct. Or they were missing enough parts to not be concerned a restoration would hurt value.
I've got maybe 16 old Rolling Block Sporting Rifles, and two are restorations I did. Both came to me as just complete actions, so easy to decide to build them back to what I wanted. One became a pistol grip .40-50SS, and the other a straight grip in .40-65 Win.

View attachment 746852

View attachment 746853

Gorgeous!!! Where did you get your wood?

Bon Sauvage · Sep 8, 2020

ZigZagZeke said:
Gorgeous!!! Where did you get your wood?

Clean it up, will ya?

Swiss_Cheeze · Sep 8, 2020

That's cool.

Member 38805 · Sep 11, 2020

ZigZagZeke said:
Gorgeous!!! Where did you get your wood?

The wood for the stocks on the pistol grip Rolling Block is original Remington wood from the short run Remington did in 1997. They had two stock options that year; a std. model and the deluxe checkered presentation set with steel forearm tip, and steel buttplate. The leftover wood was sold to Numrich Gun Parts, along with numerous other parts. I bought the last set of deluxe stocks Numrich had, plus an original pistol grip lower tang, and original long range tang sight, and windage globe front sight. All Remington made.
The straight grip stock wood was a gift from a close friend just before he passed. I sent the wood off to Crossno's Gun Shop in Oklahoma and Dave did the 90% inletting for me. Then I fitted a skeletonized engraved buttplate, and a steel forearm cap from John King. Finished it off in 16 coats of Wipe On Polly, hand rubbed and buffed. It's got a Lee Shaver Long range vernier rear sight, and a custom hand made Farringer front sight. Color Case and rust bluing by Al Springer on both guns.

Buttplate on the straight grip:

oldcorpgunny · Sep 11, 2020

ZigZagZeke said:
When I sold my 40 year old Corvette one of the tongue in cheek "pluses" about it was that the original spare and never been on the ground and still had the original air in it.

When I sold my '78 Corvette, it had an 8 track tape player in it with a "Donny and Marie tape still in it."

wired · Sep 11, 2020

Even in perfect condition they have no real intrinsic value. Making it look nicer wont make it more valuable or really less valuable either. Hang it on the wall.

ZigZagZeke · Sep 11, 2020

mm93 said:
The wood for the stocks on the pistol grip Rolling Block is original Remington wood from the short run Remington did in 1997. They had two stock options that year; a std. model and the deluxe checkered presentation set with steel forearm tip, and steel buttplate. The leftover wood was sold to Numrich Gun Parts, along with numerous other parts. I bought the last set of deluxe stocks Numrich had, plus an original pistol grip lower tang, and original long range tang sight, and windage globe front sight. All Remington made.
The straight grip stock wood was a gift from a close friend just before he passed. I sent the wood off to Crossno's Gun Shop in Oklahoma and Dave did the 90% inletting for me. Then I fitted a skeletonized engraved buttplate, and a steel forearm cap from John King. Finished it off in 16 coats of Wipe On Polly, hand rubbed and buffed. It's got a Lee Shaver Long range vernier rear sight, and a custom hand made Farringer front sight. Color Case and rust bluing by Al Springer on both guns.

Buttplate on the straight grip:

View attachment 748135

View attachment 748136

I used a Lee Shaver sight too. My wood came 90% from Treebone Carving. Treebone has jigs and patterns specifically for the #1 sporter receiver, which is slightly different dimensionally from the military receiver, and they produce a variety of styles in butt stocks from shotgun to crescent. He also supplied the forearm cap. I have a spare butt stock from Treebone too, just in case. My metal work was done by Jim Dubell of Delta Gun Shop (since passed away). He lined the barrel, re-heat treated all the metal, and cleaned up the shade tree conversion to center fire by tig welding the breech block and making a new, larger firing pin. Given the new heat treating, and the high pressure firing pin we decided to chamber it for .357 Mag. .38 spc rounds in it sound like a .22 LR. I wanted to get as close to the original .38 Long rimfire as possible in a modern cartridge.

ZigZagZeke · Sep 11, 2020

wired said:
Even in perfect condition they have no real intrinsic value. Making it look nicer wont make it more valuable or really less valuable either. Hang it on the wall.

Yep, you really do know how it goes with old Corvettes.

Member 38805 · Sep 12, 2020

ZigZagZeke said:
I used a Lee Shaver sight too. My wood came 90% from Treebone Carving. Treebone has jigs and patterns specifically for the #1 sporter receiver, which is slightly different dimensionally from the military receiver, and they produce a variety of styles in butt stocks from shotgun to crescent.

Known George for many decades, and when it comes to Rolling Block stock sets, he's probably better than anyone since the Rolling Blocks are his personal favorite.
The differences between Sporting Rifles and military Rolling Block actions are quite a bit more than "slightly"! Beyond the longer lower tang, with the extra screw hole, there's significant differences in upper and lower tangs in both width and thickness. Once you try to fit a Sporting Rifle stock to a military action it's amazing how much work is required to either take metal away, or take wood away!
I normally just choose to buy wood in Sporting styles, but inletted for military tangs. But in the case of my pistol gripped Rolling Block, I had finished Remington stocks, and a factory pistol grip lower tang. So my options were to either open up the inletting on the top tang, or rework the top tang in thickness, width, and length, to fit the finished stock. I wanted a authentic look so I chose the hard way and began trimming and filing away metal on the top tang and repeatedly checking fit, until it went together. Then once it slid into the stocks I quickly realized the length of both tangs were still slightly long, so had to remove metal off the length of both tangs to allow the wood to butt up to the receiver on both sides.
It was the most grueling stock and receiver fitting I've ever had to do, but the Remington stocks were just too nice for me to consider removing any wood anywhere from them, and chance screwing them up. In the end it was worth the extra effort as I've got a new Remington that is all Remington parts, except for the Green Mountain barrel.

Medic! · Sep 12, 2020

Got it.

Now what would you guys do with a valuable gun in great condition?

Wait. That should probably be another thread.

ZigZagZeke · Sep 12, 2020

mm93 said:
Known George for many decades, and when it comes to Rolling Block stock sets, he's probably better than anyone since the Rolling Blocks are his personal favorite.
The differences between Sporting Rifles and military Rolling Block actions are quite a bit more than "slightly"! Beyond the longer lower tang, with the extra screw hole, there's significant differences in upper and lower tangs in both width and thickness. Once you try to fit a Sporting Rifle stock to a military action it's amazing how much work is required to either take metal away, or take wood away!
I normally just choose to buy wood in Sporting styles, but inletted for military tangs. But in the case of my pistol gripped Rolling Block, I had finished Remington stocks, and a factory pistol grip lower tang. So my options were to either open up the inletting on the top tang, or rework the top tang in thickness, width, and length, to fit the finished stock. I wanted a authentic look so I chose the hard way and began trimming and filing away metal on the top tang and repeatedly checking fit, until it went together. Then once it slid into the stocks I quickly realized the length of both tangs were still slightly long, so had to remove metal off the length of both tangs to allow the wood to butt up to the receiver on both sides.
It was the most grueling stock and receiver fitting I've ever had to do, but the Remington stocks were just too nice for me to consider removing any wood anywhere from them, and chance screwing them up. In the end it was worth the extra effort as I've got a new Remington that is all Remington parts, except for the Green Mountain barrel.

George is the best. He offered me stocks for my rifle in mesquite at a severe discount, but I really wanted walnut. By "slightly" different I was referring to the width of the receiver on a sporter. A lot people don't catch that. Tangs can be modified or replaced but it's hard to change that dimension. If we hadn't decided to line the barrel I was going to go the Green Mountain route. Went with a TJ's liner in .357.

I'm keeping an eye out for a good deal on a very old lever gun in an obsolete caliber that needs restoring. George has beautiful wood for most any old lever gun too.

Member 38805 · Sep 12, 2020

ZigZagZeke said:
George is the best. He offered me stocks for my rifle in mesquite at a severe discount, but I really wanted walnut. By "slightly" different I was referring to the width of the receiver on a sporter. A lot people don't catch that. Tangs can be modified or replaced but it's hard to change that dimension. If we hadn't decided to line the barrel I was going to go the Green Mountain route. Went with a TJ's liner in .357.

I'm keeping an eye out for a good deal on a very old lever gun in an obsolete caliber that needs restoring. George has beautiful wood for most any old lever gun too.

Yes, that's a slight difference, and doubt anyone compensates for it regardless of what the stocks are for. The tangs are a huge difference, and replacing the lower tang takes some draw file work to make it fit the receiver. But thinning, and narrowing the top tang if a huge process. Not just taking almost 1/8" off width, but about the same amount off thickness. And at the same time blending the thickness and width up into the rest the receiver. When I fit the Sporter stocks to the military action on my pistol grip, there was no width issues at all. It fit exactly as it would on a Sporter action.

I've got a couple spare actions here that I've been pondering another build up Roller. One has been cut to octagon top to mimic a Sporter, and I'd like a Rolling Block in .38-55 or .32-40. Leaning towards the .38-55 Ballard as I've already got a Hepburn in the .32-40 Ballard.
But there's two Ballard actions sitting on the bench ahead of the Rollers, so who knows when I'll ever get around to those actions?

Member 38805 · Oct 5, 2020

Here's a rare gun I figured was the perfect choice for a complete restoration. I couldn't hurt it since it was just a bare action, two blank blocks of high grade wood, and a .457" full octagon barrel. I built this gun up almost 20 years ago. Remington Hepburn in .45-70 caliber. 1:18" twist #3 weight barrel.