Repairing a “Duffel Cut” Rifle

In WWII, when a GI wanted to bring back a rifle, his commanding officer signed a letter authorizing him to bring home a souvenir. To fit the gun into his duffel bag, he disassembled it and sometimes shortened the stock by sawing off part of the forend if needed. Thus, the term "duffel cut" was coined. A student at Trinidad College’s NRA Summer Gunsmithing Museum Conservation Class brought in a Mauser DSM-34 .22 caliber training rifle with a dummy cleaning rod.

Fortunately, the GI thoughtfully sawed it where it was hidden by the unterring (barrel band). Unfortunately, the authorization paper identifying the soldier and his unit did not come with the gun. There were three alternatives available. Current museum conservation standard calls for preserving the object in its present state. This means no permanent repair is made because there is the assumption that in the future more advanced technology will be developed that makes for a superior repair.

This limits the conservator to cleaning the object with non-harmful chemicals and afterward treating it with Renaissance Wax as a preservative. Developed by the conservators of the British Museum, Renaissance Wax is PH neutral, microcyrstalline, and used by museum conservators worldwide on wood, metal, and even leather. Woodcraft stores The work is concealed beneath the second barrel band. Note the dummy cleaning rod. often carry it.

Applied with a clean cotton cloth and then rubbed in, depending on the storage conditions the object is protected for years. The second approach is to restore the object to factory condition. This involves gluing a fluted dowel to the stock and forend. Similar to preparing a stock to accept an ebony nose, this entails flattening both the stock and the forend and checking

with a machinist square that both are flush. Shim stock the thickness of the missing area is filed and sanded to match the stock’s contour. After drilling the shim for the dowel, glue is applied and is slid over the dowel. The forend is then glued onto the dowel and shim. This restores the stock to its original length and is invisible after the barrel band is installed. If the gunsmith knows 3D printing (or has a handy teenager who does) a shim could be printed that would perfectly match the cut.

This requires scanning the cut on both the forend and the stock. Then it is only a matter of determining how thick to print the shim such that the original length is restored. Finally, the third method would restore the rifle’s usefulness without any major alterations. We chose the third. To do this, we found the center of the forearm and used a brad point drill to drill a 1/4" hole a half-inch deep. A brad point drill is less likely to wander and is available at woodworking stores.

To keep the depth, apiece of painter’s tape was used to mark the drill’s half-inch point. Afterward, a metal dowel center was placed into the freshly drilled hole and the forearm was placed against the stock. The forend was lightly tapped with a mallet to transfer the impression on the stock. The stock was already in a vise with across level to ensure that it was horizontal to the ground. Here’s where extra eyes are helpful.

One student stood off to the side to ensure that the person drilling the stock held the drill horizontal to the stock. Another stood some distance behind the butt to make sure the driller was neither canted left nor right. The stock was then drilled a half-inch deep. A quarter-inch fluted dowel pin was lightly coated with pure beeswax and inserted into the stock. The forend piece was then pushed onto the dowel and checked for straightness.

Beeswax seals the dowel against moisture and deters swelling that, depending on the humidity, could make disassembly difficult. Since the rifle was a low recoil .22 caliber, it could still be fired without separating. If additional tackiness or stickiness between the two pieces is wanted, Museum Wax is recommended. Museum Wax is nonpermanent, easily comes off without trace, and popular in earthquake country to keep objects from sliding off a shelf or from a display case.

For more reading on German .22 caliber training rifles, see Robert Simpson’s Training Rifles of Third Reich Germany. AG