Restoring Grandpa’s Gun

A family trip to visit Grandparents has been a highlight for many of us as we grew up. Be it a Thanksgiving, birthdays, or Christmas family gatherings bring back memories of Grandma’s cooking, holiday feasts, and, best of all, presents. The discovery of Grandpa’s old shotgun or .22 caliber rifle that may have been hidden away in a closet, basement, or barn is one of those childhood memories many of us share. Being handed that gun and told it is now yours is an unforgettable experience.

It is a passage into adulthood; proof that we are no longer seen as a child that we can now be trusted with a firearm. It is a milestone in growing up. In many of our experiences, that old shotgun or rimfire rifle is nowa family heirloom that we decided needed restoration. We want to make it look like new again but a trip to the local gunsmith soon dashed our hopes when he told us that we could buy anew one for less than he would charge to refinish Grandpa’s.

About that time Dad would put his foot down and that 22 rimfire that has been put away for many years. Some rust, fading finish, and worn stock. old gun would hang on the wall in your room, a fond legacy but rarely used. Years pass, then one day you pull that old gun out and run your hands over the chipped and worn stock, see the corrosion on the metal parts, and wonder if you can restore it yourself. Yes, you can. "Kitchen table gunsmithing" refers to at-home gun tinkering.

It is usually a negative term as it is too often undertaken by someone that doesn’t fully understand and appreciate the amount of work and knowledge good gunsmithing involves. Such tinkering is famous for providing skilled gunsmiths new customers when the beleaguered would-be ‘smith finally relents and seeks professional help. However, a restoration project can be done without access to a fullyfurnished shop—perhaps even at a kitchen table—if you know what to do and have the necessary tools and supplies.

In this article I will be using an old Glenfield Model 20, a bolt action rifle chambered in 22 Long Rifle to demonstrate some of the things a home hobbyist can do. The same techniques can be used on any firearm be it a rifle or shotgun. The idea is to use the existing parts and refinish them rather than buy anew stock, barrel, or other parts.

In the end, we will still have Grandpa’s gun but, hopefully, in much better condition than when it was given to us and we will add a couple of simple custom touches to enhance its looks. Evaluation Before we start doing any work on the gun, we need to take a close look at it and determine both what needs to be done and what we would like to change. Most likely the two major things that need attention are the wood and the exterior metal. The finish on the stock will probably be worn, dented, perhaps cracked.

The receiver and barrel may be rusty, pitted, and the original bluing all but gone. The condition of the bore should be evaluated after a thorough cleaning. A good bore is always a sign that this is a project well worth undertaking. Having established that the bore is in good shape and most

of the problems are cosmetic, it is time to disassemble the gun and get to work on repair, restoration, and even a bit of customization. If you are not sure how to disassemble the gun you have in front of you, the various NRA Disassembly Manuals can be a great source of help, but even these don’t cover everything. You Tube is another good source of basic information and you may well be able to watch a step-by-step video of how to disassemble and reassemble the make and model of firearm you have.

One word of warning, if the firearm you are trying to refinish is of a rather complex design—like the Browning A5, Winchester 97 or the Remington Nylon 66—and you have little or no experience, you might be well advised to start with something simpler until you have a better understanding of firearms design and are ready for something more advanced.

Tools To undertake a restoration project like this requires complete disassemble of the firearm so that every part can be cleaned, inspected, and repaired or replaced before reassembly. For this you will need a number of tools. First among them is a good set of screwdrivers. Both Brownells and Midway USA offer screwdriver sets with multiple bits that will allow you to precisely fit every screw slot on the gun.

You may have screwdrivers at home but a good set of parallel ground screwdrivers and bits designed not to mar the screw slots and be in the variety of sizes needed area good investment if you intend to do more gun work in the future. The tighter and more corroded the screw, the more important the correct fit of the screwdriver bit to the screw slot is. You will also need a set of punches, files, sandpaper, paint stripper, wood stain, and wood finish.

If you are not familiar with the firearm you are working on it is a good idea to take detailed pictures as you remove each part so you can refer to it during reassembly. Find a magnetic tray or some container to put the parts in Far so they stay together and don’t get lost. Once the firearm is completely disassembled the cleaning begins.

You will want to do a very detailed cleaning to remove all rust, grease, and any blemishes on the metal parts because when you reblue it, every imperfection is going to be magnified. This is the time to inspect each part for wear and tear. Check your screw slots carefully; it is very common to find that the screw slots are distorted. They can be repaired in a number of ways. If you can weld it is sometimes easier and faster to simply weld the old slot closed and recut the slot.

Often the metal that has been displaced can be forced back in place with a hammer and punches and the slot cleaned up with a file. There are a number of methods of removing the old finish and surface rust. You can use a rust and blue remover and that will remove the remaining old finish and rust from the parts. However, it will not remove any scratches or pits and will leave the surface of the metal

frosted. Those scratches and pits are going to have to be removed by abrasion. If you have a buffer, you can use buffing wheels and abrasive compound to polish the metal but, unless you have had some experience with using buffing wheels, it is very easy to round off the edges, dish out the screw holes, and erase all the markings on the barrel and other metal parts. For your first projects it is much safer to use cloth-backed abrasives.

Starting with a coarse grit and a hard backer, sand the parts until all pits and scratches are eliminated. Then you can sand the parts using finer and finer grits being sure to remove all the scratches from the previous grit before moving on to a finer grit until you achieve the finish you want. For a dull finish you can stop at about 120 grit and 220 grit will give you a very nice surface. If you have the patience to work down to 320, 400, or finer you can have the metal looking like a mirror.

This is one place where persistence and patience really pay off. Refinishing We’ll start with the metal. There are many ways of rebluing a firearm. The best and most surefire is hot salts bluing. Unfortunately, it takes a lot of expensive equipment and dealing with a hot and super caustic solution. It is not something you can do in your basement (and certainly not in a kitchen) but if you have access to someone that will do it for you or you already have a set-up, that is the way to go.

Probably the fastest and most common method used by hobbyists is to use a cold blue. There are many cold bluing solutions on the market and they will all color steel. However, over the years many different alloys have been used in firearms. A cold blue that works wonderfully on one gun made of a particular alloy may be a total flop on another. My go-to cold blue has been Birchwood Casey Super Blue.

I swore by it until the day I had an Italian cap and ball revolver in and the Super Blue would give me nothing more than a medium gray color. I tried several other products

on it with various degrees of success but nothing I thought was adequate. Then I tried 44/40 Instant Blue from Brownells, a product that I had not had much success with before. Darned if it didn’t instantly turn the barrel the deepest, darkest black I have ever seen. The moral of this story is that no cold blue I have found works on every alloy. I keep several around the shop for that very reason.

For your first project, it’s worth asking about the specific gun you’re restoring to identify an ideal cold blue for it. Another home and small shop friendly method is rust bluing. This calls for boiling the parts in water, swabbing on a rust bluing solution, allowing them to form rust on the surface, and then carding it off—carding is "gunsmith speak" for buffing or wire brushing the surface rust off. This process is repeated over and over until the desired finish is achieved.

Some rust bluing solutions require the use of a damp box but some do not. Personally, I have used Brownells Dicropan IM for many years and it is my go to rust bluing solution as it does not require a damp box and waiting days between applications. No matter what rust bluing method you choose, they all are labor intensive and time consuming. The results are worth the time and work, but make no mistake, rust bluing is a chore. Finally, we come to spray on finishes.

These are fast and easy and they are available in many different colors. If you can operate a spray can, there is a finish for you. Brownells has some baking lacquers that have to be baked in an oven to cure and there are also air activated epoxy finishes such as Brownells Aluma-Hyde II, as well as the entire Duracoat line of products. Some are aerosols, others are liquids that are applied I angle the flutes to point toward the toe of the stock and to parallel the angle of the top of the grip.

Far I think it looks like something out of Brownells catalog. with an air brush. There is literally no reason you can’t refinish the metal parts of a gun in your shop, home, or garage. As enticing as the tremendous labor and time saving properties these alternative finishes offer, I don’t have a lot of experience with them. With the metal parts cleaned, polished, and reblued it is time to move on to refinishing the stock.

This is one place where you can really transform the gun from a run-of-the-mill factory-style gun to something a little different and more attractive than you think. The fastest way is to strip the old finish, sand the stock lightly, stain it, and use something like Birchwood Casey Tru-Oil on it. In a couple of days you will have a beautifully finished and very serviceable stock. If, however, you’re adventurous and would like to learn some customization tricks, read on.

Choosing the an ideal cold blue for this gun has given usa finish we can be proud of. Sample Project For this project I have tried to take the same steps a hobbyist might use. The metal parts were sanded by hand and then reblued with 44/40 Instant Gun Blue. I found that this type of cold blue was suitable for the Glenfield and I followed the instructions on the bottle.

The stock was stripped with a commercial wood stripper and then a rasp was used to remove the factory-impressed grooves and groundhog on the pistol grip. The rasp was then used to change the contour of the front of the comb and cut in flutes. The stock was sanded down to 220 grit and stained with a water-based walnut stain. It was then finished with a 50/50 mixture of boiled linseed oil and turpentine to give the final result a classic semi-gloss finish.

When sanding the stock I left the buttplate on and sanded it with the stock so they remained a perfect fit. I’m really not a big fan of plastic trigger guards, so I dug out an old Mauser steel trigger guard and slimmed the bow down by hand using a half round file, then polished and blued it, and inletted it into the stock. None of the modifications are strictly necessary and some are simply a matter of taste. These are suggestions of things you can do not necessarily things you should do.

They are just suggestions of a couple of easily done things that can personalize your rifle. Hopefully, you have learned a few things from this project. If nothing else you will have learned through all the hours of polishing, sanding, and finishing what that gunsmith meant when he quoted that high price and why he would have to charge you more to refinish the gun than anew one would cost. How many hours did you spend on this project?

Even at a $15 per hour minimum wage (and no gunsmith is going to work for minimum wage) how much would this job have cost you, just for the labor? Add in shop overhead, insurance, and the cost of parts, tools, and supplies, and you’ll realize gunsmiths are not overcharging. Even if you never plan to go into business as a gunsmith, projects like this can give you a lot of personal satisfaction, an appreciation for skilled tradesmanship, and a hobby that can last a lifetime. AG American Gunsmith Reader Services 1.