Bringing A Springfield Model 87A Back To Life

A friend brought me one of the most rusted firearms I have ever seen. It belonged to a cousin whose son had left it in afield behind a barn several years before. There it had lain in grass, mud, rain and snow until recently found. My friend asked me to look it over and decide if it was scrap or recoverable. Since it was going to be an ongoing project through the winter in between other work, I decided to give it a try since no particular time frame was involved.

The Springfield 87A is a semiautomatic, tubular fed .22 rimfire firing the .22 long rifle cartridge in semi-auto mode and .22 long and shorts in single shot mode. Single shot mode is activated by pushing the locking bolt (bolt knob) in to lock the bolt and operate essentially like a regular single shot bolt action rifle. Long and short .22 rimfires are unable to satisfactorily operate the action for semi-auto functioning.

It has the same basic action as the Savage Model 6 and its variants, as well as Springfield and Stevens models 76, 85 and 187 and their variants. This design has been around since 1938 and is well proven as a reliable semiauto rimfire mechanism. Having inspected my new project, I was ready to get into it. The barreled action was covered with surface rust throughout and deeply pitted. The inner magazine tube was missing and the outer tube also covered with surface rust and deeply pitted.

The trigger guard was extremely worn and a very dull gray color. Much of the original finish was worn off the stock and a couple of areas were very course and abrasive to the touch where the stock had been in mud for a period of time. Time to field strip this rifle. The first step is to unscrew the take down screw located on the bottom center of the stock. The barreled action can now be taken out of the stock, exposing all of the working parts of the action. Unscrew the recoil plug at the rear of the action.

On this gun, it was around, knurled plug. Some of them will bearound, oblong affair containing the safety mechanism. This proved to be quite a chore on this rifle as it was well rusted in place! After trying all regular avenues, I resorted to a large pipe wrench to secure its release. Even with protection on the knurled section, the wrench did a job on the plug but I already had a fix in mind for later.

The functioning parts of the action were in relatively good condition and I decided to simply remove the release housing assembly and magazine guide assembly as complete units. They are both held in by two screws, 1/4 x 32 TPI for reference. These screws came out relatively easy and I left the assemblies intact for cleaning later on. A visual check of these assemblies did not find anything out of place or damaged. The hammer, breech bolt and accompanying parts were removed without incident.

Next, I removed the safety and safety spring from the right side of the receiver. It’s held on with two screws. I then removed the outer magazine tube and its two mounts that are dovetailed in the bottom of the barrel. The front and rear sights were moved out of their dovetails in

the top of the barrel. They can come out left or right. Remove the trigger guard from the stock. After removing the front and rear screws of the guard and soaking the guard with penetrating oil for a few minutes, I proceeded to pull down on the guard and it came out in my hand in pieces. The zinc alloy trigger guard had apparently deteriorated in the water and mud, becoming brittle. I ordered anew trigger guard and replacement for the missing inner magazine tube.

While parts for these rifles are not scarce, some parts sources seem to be drying up. My initial plan was to draw file the barreled action and outer magazine tube to remove the deeper pitting. I determined that the outer magazine tube was simply too thin for this action and decided to replace it. For some odd reason, the bore of the rifle had only minor surface rust and I was able to clean it up with bore solvent and a bronze brush. There are pluses and minuses to every job and this was a definite plus!

I started out by running the barreled action over a fine wire wheel brush on my bench grinder. This took a moderate amount of the surface rust off, exposing bare metal. Next, I chucked the barreled action in a lathe with a 3-way steady rest running at 150 rpm and used one-inch 60 grit sanding strips in a shoe shine rocking motion over the whole rifle to see how much of the pitting would be removed. Approximately 20% of the pitting was removed with this method.

It was evident that draw filling was going to be the next step! I secured the action in protective jaws on my bench vise and commenced draw filling. Proper technique takes some time to learn and you must exercise patience and wisdom to minimize flats being produced on the barrel. I draw the file two handed toward myself with a gentle horizontal rocking motion, taking a very thin bite each pass. I started with a twelve inch flat smooth cut mill file and finished with a ten inch second cut mill file.

I spent the better part of two hours on this, bringing the pitting down to around 10% left on the metal. I then ran the barreled action over the wire wheel brush to clean up the draw filling residue and chucked it back in the lathe. I spent several hours running one-inch sanding strips over the entire barreled action, taking out the rest of the rust pitting. I used in order, aluminum oxide, wet or dry paper, 60 grit, 120 grit, 180 grit, 240 grit, 320 grit, 400 grit, 600 grit and 1000 grit.

This left the bare metal in a very smooth and shiny state, so I decided not to do any further polishing on my felt wheels. The metal was now ready for bluing after degreasing, done with clean lacquer thinner. Not currently utilizing bluing tanks, I used the same method I’ve had excellent results with for the past 15 years. The metal preparation is far more important than the method of bluing used. I hung the barreled action through a wire horizontally at eye level over my work bench for the bluing process.

The barreled action is rotated very easily on the wire to reach all areas. I use Brownells Oxpho-Blue purchased by the pint for the bulk of my bluing, applying the blue with cotton balls dipped in a plastic container. Be certain to use surgical gloves for this procedure. Bluing solutions are harmful to your health if induced or absorbed through the skin.

I heat up the barreled action with a hand held hair dryer on high heat, approximately three to four inches at a time and coat liberally with the bluing solution around the complete barrel. I obtain cheap, used hair driers at Goodwill and keep extras if they burn out. After covering the whole barrel in increments, I repeat the process several times until I get the deep blue color I want and halt the bluing action with very clean shop rags soaked in plain water.

If I have any spots that need retouching, now is the time for that. On this proj-

ect, I didn’t need to. I then rubbed down the entire barreled action with a clean, course shop rag (red rag) as this has a very nice polishing effect on the bluing, then put a liberal coat of Rem Oil on the entire blue job, repeated every day over the course of the project. The Rem Oil has a setting effect on the bluing. Any gun oil will do the same. The entire bluing process took me about 1.5 hours. It was now time to tackle the stock. I started out with a heavy coat of Zip-Strip paint and finish remover.

I let this set about 15 minutes and scraped it off with a dull putty knife. I do one side, the top, the other side and the stock bottom, repeating until all the finish is gone. Usually, I’ll start out with sanding, however, this stock had a unique problem I have seldom encountered before. One small area on the bottom of the butt stock and bottom of the forend had absorbed some muddy water and then dried out. This had to be leached out of the stock, which proved to be big problem.

After utilizing the normal methods with whiting and acetone, heat and lacquer thinner, etc., the job was only partially done. The only method left would have been to place the parts in boiling water but I did not want to risk cracking or warping the stock, so I ended the leaching process. I then tackled the stock with 100 grit sandpaper followed by 220, then 320 grit. This smoothed the wood out nice for the staining. I elected a medium walnut stain and two coats covered the wood nicely.

I let each coat dry approximately 24 hours. I rubbed each coat out lightly with 0000 steel wool and wiped down with a clean rag. Now, the final finish. I have run the gamut over the years with just about every stock finish known to man. I have had good results with quite a few of them and decided along time ago technique has a lot to do with the final result. Lately, I have been using Minwax Fast Drying Polyurethane Clear Satin and chose that for this stock.

I put the first coat on thin with no runs and let dry 24 hours in a warm environment. I then rubbed it out with 0000 steel wool to a satin finish and repeated the process twice more for a total of three finish coats. I did an experiment many years ago cutting out 24 pieces of walnut from an old butt stock and sanding each piece to a smooth finish. I then applied one coat of finish to one piece, then two coats to another and so on and so forth, all the way up to 24 coats on the last piece.

Letting each piece fully dry and polish out with 0000 steel wool, I found that after six coats I could not appreciably detect any difference between coat #6 and coat #24. Others may swear a difference, but this gunsmith couldn’t! I usually quit after three coats but sometimes will go to six on various specimens of wood. I procured the needed replacement parts, inner and outer magazine tubes and trigger guard from three separate sources. This is often the norm with older model firearms.

I then cleaned up the magazine guide and release housing assemblies, and reblued the sights and outer magazine tube mounts. I reworked and reblued the takedown screw. That left one small project: The recoil plug rusted in place. After cleaning it up on a wire wheel brush, I chucked it up in the lathe and turned off the knurling. I could have easily knurled it again but chose to leave it smooth, drilling a hole in the rear circular portion for a spanner wrench.

I used a 9/64 inch center drill and drilled to a depth of 1/4 inch. I then modified the hub on a spanner wrench to fit the circumference and hole perfectly to tighten or loosen the recoil plug. I have done this before on several occasions and it works out well. I have probably a couple dozen spanner wrenches I have picked up over the years at old tool shops, flea markets inexpensively and these have come in very handy over the years for jobs just like this.

I then reblued the recoil plug and was ready to reassemble the rifle. After reassembly, oiling and check out with dummy cartridges, checking for proper feeding, extraction and ejecting, the project was ready for live fire testing. Everything worked great as when new. With a little tweaking of the sights, the rifle was right on the money at 50 yards. Working anywhere from 15 minutes to two hours at a time, this project covered about two and a half months to completion.

I figure I spent somewhere between 12 to 15 hours of labor on the entire project. All in all, this was a great restoration project and the owner couldn’t believe his eyes when my friend took the gun to him. The Model 87A was truly brought back to life after its resting place in a muddy field graveyard! AG