Restoring A Forearm

One of the common problems with collecting and shooting old military rifles is undoing the work that has been done to them over the years. I found a wonderful old Snider on Gunbroker.com. Like so many of them, the barrel and forearm had been cut at some point in its history to make it handier and more suitable for some settler to use around his farm.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Snider, it is a conversion of the 1853 English Enfield from a muzzleloader to a single-shot black powder cartridge gun along the same lines as the Trapdoor Springfield. However, rather than putting in a trap door that opens forward, the Snider opens to the right side. The cartridge is .577 Snider and it can be loaded with the same .58 caliber Minié ball that was used in the gun when it was a muzzle loader.

The Snider was originally Holes are drilled oversized so the alignment of the extension can be adjusted. available in three primary barrel lengths. The three-band Enfield or long rifle has a 36.5" barrel. The twoband or short rifle has a 30.5" barrel, and the Cavalry Carbine has a single barrel band with a 19.5" barrel. Brass for the .577 Snider is available from Track of the Wolf (Track- OfTheWolf.com, or Buffalo Arms (BuffaloArms.com, at about $4.10 per case.

As an alternative, Gunbroker. com lists 24 gauge shotgun hulls for about $16.00 for 25. You will have to shorten the plastic shotgun hulls and they are generally not reloadable but they do provide a less expensive way to load for a Snider. These instructions will, of course, apply to any military rifle that’s had its forend cut off. I’m simply using this Snider as an example.

In my case, there was still enough barrel left to shorten it to the correct length for a two-band short rifle but I had to do something about the forend. There are a couple of methods of adding wood to the front of the stock and the method used is dictated by your ability to find matching wood and fit it so the splice is as invisible as possible.

I am not very good at finding walnut that matches the color and grain pattern of European walnut stocks so the method I chose was to do what is known as a "barracks bag cut".

For those of you sheltered youngsters who never heard of a barracks bag cut, let me explain. Back in the bad old days when soldiers were returning home from foreign shores, they would allegedly hide souvenir firearms in their barracks bag with their clothing stuffed around the gun so it was undetectable. With a handgun or two, this wasn’t a problem but along gun was generally longer than the bag. To solve this, ingenious GIs would reportedly remove the barreled action from the stock and then cut the stock in two.

Repeat this step over and over until the barrel is fully inletted. Repeat with the ramrod/cleaning rod. The forearm extension is reduced again at the forward barrel band to the size of the forearm tip. To keep the cut from being seen after the gun was reassembled at home, he would place the cut under the rear barrel band so it was covered when the gun was assembled. Now we all know no American GI would ever smuggle in an unauthorized firearm so let’s just say this is a legend rather than a fact.

If you buy that, please write me as I have a toll bridge for sale I’m certain you’d be interested in. With the tip of the stock cut off under the rear band, I bought apiece of 2×2 poplar and attached it to the forend in the same way I have shown how to repair broken stocks in previous articles. I have found that poplar takes walnut stain well and if I refinish the stock and stain the two together, I can come much closer to matching the color.

I drilled oversized holes in both the stock and the piece of poplar, placing pins in the two smaller holes and apiece of all thread rod in the larger hole. The holes were then filled with Brownells Acraglas Gel and clamped together for 24 hours to properly set. Up to this point the job has been easy. Now the work begins. The new extended forend has to be inlet for the barrel and the ramrod groove, then contoured to match the forend stub glued it to.

A great gauge for contouring the profile of the forend is the barrel band. It has to slide all the way down the forend. Using it as a test gauge shows where to remove wood. Inletting of the barrel and ramrod groove is time consuming and I

start by drawing a centerline down the top of the stock and cutting a groove down it. Then by blackening the barrel either with soot or inletting black and pushing the band down into the channel marks where wood needs to be removed. You can hog out a lot of wood at first but go slowly and carefully as you get closer to the final stages. That barrel will be in and out of the stock literally hundreds of times. If you Top After finishing, it should be undetectable. Bottom are like me, the temptation is to get it done.

Resist the urge and go slow. Scrape small amounts of wood out until the barrel sits in the forend perfectly. Parts such as the forearm tip, upper band, and sights that might be needed to complete the project are available from S&S Firearms (SS- Firearms.com, With the hard work done all that is left is to sand, stain, and finish the stock for reassembly. Now comes the fun part! You get to take your rifle out to the range and see if you have done a good enough job that everyone thinks it is all original. AG