The Home Stretch

The title fits several situations:
The Year 2013 of course, getting ready for Christmas, nailing down the details of an upcoming trip.

Also, as referenced in my previous post way back in October (longest time I've ever spent away from this blog) my computer issues are close to being sorted out.
The laptop has a new harddrive and suddenly can do many things it couldn't before, while the plan for my PC is merely awaiting execution ($$$ + spare time).

On the projects front, the restoration of my dad's Mauser rifle is nearly complete, and it's turned out better than I had hoped.
For a guy with mostly synthetic stocks, refinishing the wood and grinding a new rubber buttpad to fit went very smoothly. Beginners luck?
All I need now is a new scope with enough magnification to do it justice. 5X is a bit weak for a firearm that can hit varmints accurately at over 400 yards.
(I don't hunt--for me it's all about the science of the hardware and restoring a gun that was built by my father a few years before he was killed, and had been "Lost" in Tennessee for 50 years).

Now that I have a computer that can run Photoshop again, I can even post pictures!

Hopefully we'll find some time to capture something new and different for our 2013 Christmas card photo, but if not I have plenty of good material from many previous shoots.


Whether anyone missed me or not, I'm glad to be back.
Facebook and Twitter etc are fun and convenient and reach lots of people, but I've been blogging for almost 9 years and there's something special about having your own little corner of the interwebs that stands on it's own with archives and everything.
At Thanksgiving dinner one of Sylvia's sisters told me that her friend recently got into photography and actually read all 899 posts before this one.
I'm flattered and hope she found some helpful info and/or inspiration. No idea how long that took.

This is my 900th post to Views Of Texas.
I'm not a very prolific blogger compared to a few years ago, but an average of twice a week ain't so bad.

Project Overload

Been pretty busy these last couple of weeks.

Finished building Sylvia's pine and 2x4 bench, then we picked the lightest possible stain.
Functional, looks good enough, cheap, replaceable.

Spent an evening drinking beer with my friend Rick while we put new speakers in his bass cabinet.
Sounds better!
We cleaned is up a bit, too. Vacuumed the carpeting, painted the grill.

Stripped 50 years of yuck (plus the original finish) from my dad's rifle.
Used Krud Kutter's original cleaner degreaser concentrate based on the advice in some YouTube videos.
Unlike other advised products, this worked more gently and could be used indoors.

As I was finishing the first application I realized that "Before" pics are always a good idea, so I grabbed one that shows how dark the wood was before I started.
Seriously, you couldn't see woodgrain except in direct sunlight. Indoors it looked black.

Well well well, what do we have here?
Mmmmm, tasty walnut!

Decided to stop, meaning no steaming-out the dents, or sanding.
It's in great shape for it's age and came by it's scars through honest hard hunting by 3 members of my family.
Just have to decide what kind of finish it'll get.

Up To My Elbows In Oil

Sylvia got me a nice set of gunsmith screwdriver bits for my birthday, so I was finally ready to tackle this project.
The rifle I'm working on was featured in this post, and it's one of my favorite stories on this blog while also explaining why I didn't want to mess up any screw heads with whatever screwdrivers I had lying around. Gun screws are kinda special, and to do good work you use the right tools for the job.


After removing the action from the stock it turned out that the barrel came unscrewed from the receiver rather easily, which made it way more convenient to deal with the trouble area without 26" and 6 pounds of steel hanging off the end.
Like I figured for a gun from the early 1960s, the trigger was a Timney Sportsman fully adjustable single stage. They still make the same model today.
On mine the sear was locked in place, probably from ancient oils gone gummy.
Some spray cleaner, a little manual activation of the affected part, repeat a few dozen times, then a touch of BreakFree CLP completed the fix.
Just like new 3-lb. crisp trigger ready to go. Sweet!



Next step will be removing the Weaver scope bases to clean underneath, then add LocTite before torquing them down to the recommended specs.
A little polishing on the bolt handle and extractor is in order to get some rust off and make them purty. May want to go the extra mile and get some custom etching done to honor my father's memory and service.


The bore is mirror-bright and the lands are sharp, so a little touch-up on the bluing is all that's needed before reinstalling the barrel.



The scope is a tragically obsolete 4x Weaver--although it was the go-to model back in the day a 300+ yard cartridge deserves at least 12x magnification and a much larger objective lens for more light, not to mention modern lens design and coatings. Target turrets, adjustable objective for parallax control, illuminated mil-dot reticle, bells, whistles.
I have a few specific scopes in mind, but affording one is the problem.

But the plan is to shoot the rifle in original configuration after I finish going over every inch. I want to see what my Dad created for himself with the parts and ideas available at the time. Right now I'm just trying to get it back to original condition, before my uncle and cousin used it during the intervening 46 years.

After that, I doubt I'll keep the original wood stock.
The inside surface is kinda gooey, not sure why.
Buttpad has hardened and cracked and looks like crap.
All of my other rifles have synthetic stocks including an M1 Carbine from World War II which is almost 70 years old but looks like a new modern gun after I got through with it. But I've been looking for a wood stock project for a long time and this is definitely it. Shaving and sanding and fitting and finishing the wood appeals to me, as these are skills that directly translate to making my own bass guitar someday.

Just like my Dad did, I want to spend the time and effort to make this gun as perfect for me now as it was for him back then.
Amateur gunsmithing is probably the only passion we share.
It's interesting that the same hobby grabbed us both so strongly, much like my brother shares his love for anything that flies. Once I was old enough to wonder about my father, when I would ask people what he was like the term "Gun Nut" was usually in the first sentence of their reply. I'm glad we have something in common.

Pretty sure my music career would have driven him insane, just as his love for French culture and crappy obscure cars like Ramblers and Simkas would have brought out my worst side.
Had he lived longer, I'm sure guns would have been the one subject that could always bridge whatever divide we were dealing with, and kept the lines of communication open.