Greetings and Salutations!
Well, all the wood has been dealt with. The staining took two days worth of coating and soaking/drying, at which point this was the result this A.M.:
This’s just one piece, the main lower, but as you can see, it got dark with the walnut stain I used. Here’s a close up:
Then I polished it gently pretty much all day while working… working from home allows me a certain leeway in what I can do while on the phone. The wood, once hit with the stock sheen and conditioner, came out like this:
Niiiiice eh?
Well… the overall full piece ended up looking like this:
I’d call that a good recovery…
It’s been a LOT of work per usual… not as much as the SMLE, which needed MASSIVE rust removal and reconstruction and fitment of the replacement pieces parts and fiddly-bits. This was more of a straightforward clean/restore… I ended up going with a ‘simulated’ Brit-Black as it originally had.. a plain matte black engine paint that the boards recommended.
Personally, I think it looks spectacular. As the wood still has it’s original ‘personality’ so to speak, and it’s just been cleaned up and essentially depot-level restored, well… you tell me:
Considering how it started:
I’ll take the “W” on this.
What say you?
The only thing left is to test fire it, hopefully after work tomorrow. I’ll follow up with you all after the test. I know it’s a shooter, but the question is how good a shooter?
And as a heads up, I got another #4 that just got shipped which will be ‘up for grabs’ after I get it in and get it done. I think it’ll be here either Friday or Monday… We’ll figure out if I’ll do a raffle or just a straight out purchase/sale to one of y’all. Then we can figure out if it’ll be a restore/clean/rebuild or what based on the ‘dealer’s choice so to speak…
More Later
Big Country
Nice, yes very nice.
I’ve tried to imagine what it was like to have to carry one these heavy fuckers all day, every day for years in muddy, nasty trench warfare. Not to mention the noise of hundreds being fired at once with artillery piling in. Must have been a nightmare. Coming away from that with any semblance of sanity is truly amazing.
Buddy of mine… one of my ‘OG” Army Battle-Buddies inherited his Great Uncle’s Jap Arisaka Type 99 in 7.7×58 Jap.
Fucking thing was looooong (44 inches, early model) and HEAVY(8.4 pounds unloaded). How those lil Ichi-Won Jap-O-Heen-O bastards humped those things the way they did, where they did?
Highly impressive IMO.
Speaking of Japanese weapons.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/thousands-of-world-war-ii-era-weapons-found-buried-underneath-an-elementary-school-in-tokyo/ar-AA1zolz2
Turned out nicer than it had any right to.
Must be those magic BC fingers magic…
Good job there BC. You do good work.
Turned out great. Still has it’s personality.
Not sure which one, but an SMLE has the record for the Mad Minute. A timed, rapid fire, with reloads, with minimum score at (don’t remember) range. The Mauser was the finest battle rifle. The Springfield ’03, was the most accurate. The SMLE, best battle rifle, 10 rounds, fastest cycling, accurate enough.
That is a definite win Tiny. Excellent work. And without damaging any future collector value too, I might add. That is a fine line to walk.
A good resource for you might be Private Mckenzie over at British Muzzleloaders on OyTube. Despite the name he gets into modern suppository guns too and is an historical curator as well. If I recall he put together a great cast lead load that shoots well and is easy on the pocket book. He is both a formidable rifleman and an eccentric collector and can be quite entertaining as well.