Breathing New Life Into an Old Scattergun

If you’ve been repairing guns for awhile, either for profit or as a hobby, I know you have heard this: "I have this old:" A. Rifle B. Pistol C. Shotgun That I got from my: A. Dad B. Uncle C. Neighbor "And wonder if you can fix it for:" A. Free B. A couple of bucks C. A six-pack Nine times out of ten, the gun is a disaster and couldn’t be fixed by all the members of the American Gunsmiths Association working together with help from Harry Potter’s magic wand.

Nevertheless, on rare occasions, a poor orphan of a gun that intrigues you will land on your bench. Maybe it’s because you can see that it is well worn but salvageable, or maybe it’s a brand or style you just like. Then again, it may just be because, like me, you’re soft headed and should have better sense by now but don’t. Anyway, there I was, innocently walking down the aisle at a gunshow like a lamb being lead to the slaughter, when this old Remington Hammer Double caught my eye.

The gun showed all the signs of long, hard use. The lever was in the center of the tang and the barrels had just the slightest suggestion of movement. The checkering had all but disappeared from years of handling. And the gun has that "overall brown patina with light pitting" (in other words, more rust than Popeye’s boat anchor), and the price was almost in my range (in other words, cheap).

I talked myself into it by thinking: "With a little work, this could be a great cowboy-action shotgun." Not wanting to look too eager, I say aloud: "Looks pretty rough." That was my opening gambit to the dealer in the age-old process of "hoss trading." He answered without a moment’s hesitation: "The widow I’m selling it for won’t take less than $400." (Never try to out-hustle a hustler unless you’re willing to walk away from the deal.) After a slick session of bargaining, I cleverly manage to drive the price down to about twice what the gun was actually worth, and hauled off my prize.

Over the years, I’ve learned how to tell if I’ve made a good deal by observing the reactions of other folks at the show as I parade around the aisles with anew gun. If I get stopped and asked how much I want for it, I know I have a desirable piece. If someone offers me more than I just paid for it, I know I made a great deal. In this case, nobody ever gave the gun a second glance. It was just another rusty old shotgun to everyone but me. Once I got home, a little research

Right top: Here, the right lock has been disassembled and polished, while the left is still in the original condition. Right bottom: In this photo, the rear locking area of the bolt has already been shimmed and the oversized shim is in place ready for trimming. revealed that I had just acquired a Model 1889 Remington 12-gauge double-barreled shotgun. About 135,000 of this last model of the Hammer Double made by Remington were produced between 1889 and 1908.

It was manufactured in seven grades, with Grade 1 having "decarbonized" (sales talk for soft) steel barrels, and all six other grades featuring various qualities of Damascus barrels and everfancier walnut stocks.

Fortunately, mine is a Grade 1 gun, so at least I don’t have to be concerned over the Damascus-barrel questions. (For those who might not be familiar with the term, Damascus-steel barrels were made by twisting various combinations of iron and steel wire together and hammer welding them around a mandrel to form the barrel.

They were beautiful, strong, and safe when they were made, but over 100 years later and with the advent of smokeless powders, there’s no easy way to determine if rust has formed internally between the strands of wire or if they will stand the pressures generated by smokeless powders. The universal edict is not to shoot them no matter how good they look.

For safety’s sake, it’s better to hang them on the wall and admire them rather than to risk having one blow up in your hands.) Once a general cleaning and an overall inspection showed the gun to be fundamentally sound (despite being well worn), it was time to begin bringing it back to usable condition.

Some would call what I did "restoration," while some purists might insist it was "butchery"; I think I’ll settle for the term "rejuvenation." As it was, the gun was not in a condition that would interest a collector, and it could not be fired safely. My goal was to bring it back to life as a safe and reliable firearm to shoot in cowboyaction events. That would mean a lot of blackpowder or, at most, very lowpower smokeless handloads.

To do that, I was going to have to alter and refinish the gun, which I’m pretty sure won’t be considered butchery by other cowboy-action shooters. The gun was totally disassembled and cleaned first. The wooden buttstock and forend were liberally sprayed with oven cleaner, and left in the hot sun and resprayed several times. Years of accumulated oil that had been absorbed into the wood literally ran off the stock. The barrels were cut from their original 32-inch length and shortened to 22 inches.

This left an open space at the muzzle between the two barrels and the upper and lower ribs. This space was filled by forcing a tight wad of steel wool into the space to a depth of about an inch below the cut and then filling the void with Brownells Acra Glas Gel that had been stained black. The metal parts, including the barrels, were then stripped of the little remaining finish and sanded with progressively finer emery cloth until all traces of rust and pits were eliminated. The barrels were then cold blued.

Cold blues can be tricky, and I tried several on the cut-off portion of the barrels before settling on Birchwood Casey’s Super Blue for this project. I have had good and bad luck with cold blues on other projects in the past and keep several in my shop. I’ve never found one that gives a great finish on every type of steel and, occasionally, I find apiece that none of them will work well on, so I experiment until I find the one that does the best job on whatever I happen to be working on.

In this case, Super Blue gave a very deep and even color to the barrels. The heart of the Remington’s mechanical problem was simply wear on the bolt. The areas that actually lock the action by contacting the barrel lumps had been worn away by years of use. The bolt itself is soft steel and does not seem to have been hardened. My solution was to solder .010 shim stock to the locking surfaces of the bolt using Brownells Hi-Force 44 solder.

This is a remarkable product; it melts at about 475 degrees, so the job can be done with a normal propane torch and provides 14,000- 28,000 psi of tensile strength. I used the fluxed solder (Brownells part #080- 649-110), but it’s also available un-

fluxed if that is your preference. The shim stock was left oversized and was filed down after soldering to blend precisely into the bolt, and the leading edge was lightly tapered with a stone. The locks were disassembled, cleaned, polished, and refinished using a technique that I’ve been working on to produce case colors using a cold-blue type of solution.

The result did not produce the vivid colors I had hoped for, but the faint color is perfect for this gun since it looks like color case that has faded over the years. With the metal work done, I turned 010 shims to the bolt, the lever is back where the factory put it and the gun locks up tight, ready for another lifetime of use. I my attention to the stock. I raised the dents using the water-and-hot-iron method.

This consists of placing a damp cloth over the dented area and then using an iron on the cloth to produce steam that will raise all but the deepest gouges. The process must be repeated many times to raise deeper dents, so be patient and stick with it until the job is done. The checkering was recut using a single-line cutter and recutting one line at a time. On older guns I avoid the use of multiline checkering cutters, as many of the cutters used at the time these old guns were made were not standardized.

If the checkering on an old gun is spaced even slightly differently than the multi-line tool, you’ll quickly find yourself with a real mess. The wood was refinished using a homemade walnut stain and filler and Danish oil. (I’ll report on this stain and filler in an upcoming issue.) The final result is a shotgun that locks up tightly with plenty of lever travel left to allow for wear, and an overall look that would have made the dealer’s original asking price a bargain.

I apologize to the purists, but this 100-year-old shotgun wasn’t a collector’s piece in the condition in which I found it and wasn’t even safe to use. Today, it has a new lease on life and is doing what it was designed to do’s hoot! I took it to its first cowboy shoot a few days later and several folks asked where I got such a neat shotgun, what it was, and what I paid for it.

I have to tell you, I was darn proud of that old clunker that nobody would take a second look at on the day I rescued it from a dealer’s table. While I’m on the subject, I should point out that gunshows area great place for the hobby or student gunsmith to look for older, relatively inexpensive firearms of all types to use as learning tools. You’ll naturally stay away from the collectible firearms, as their prices don’t encourage this type of experimentation.

However, by looking hard and choosing carefully, you can find some real bargains that simply need a bit of work to bring them back to life. What better way to learn than by actually troubleshooting and repairing a variety of guns and action types. You might not be able to resell your projects at a profit, but you’ll gain invaluable knowledge and experience at a very reasonable price. Think of it as tuition toward your gunsmithing education.