Mauser Refurb

A few months ago my grandfather gave me an old Mauser action 8mm rifle. He had gotten it fairly cheap many years back. I don't have any way of determining the origin of it since most of the markings are worn away completely. It appears that it was converted to a sporting rifle at one point. It had a lot of wear. Most of the bluing was worn off of the receiver, and the stock was rough and most of the finish was worn away. Unfortunately I was so excited to get to work on the rifle that I failed to take pictures with my good camera and only have a few off of my phone that I took.

This is the stock after a few good wipe downs with mineral spirits. The mineral spirits took off the remainder of the finish and also lifted the old oil out of the wood as well.

After a long sanding process I decided that I wanted to do a traditional oil hardened finish on the stock. So I picked up some Linspeed.

After several coats utilizing the Linspeed "dual application" process you can see for yourself that the results are pretty impressive.

I had some time between coats of oil so I took the liberty to re-blue the receiver. For it being such an old rifle I was able to blend the bluing so you couldn't even tell that it was redone.



After all was said and done I think that the rifle came out looking pretty good. My grandfather actually tried taking it back after he saw how nice it came out.

More updates on the way!

Shotgun Hull Base Wad

So recently I have noticed that on several of the forums I have been going on there has been a lot of talk about "what type of shotgun hulls should I use when reloading". What are the pros/ cons between using one brand over the other? You could go on for days about the minor differences about them but in my opinion it all comes down to the bottom base wad of the hull. I normally reload 2 3/4 #8 or 7 1/2 "target loads" at first I used to use Federal Top Gun hulls since I found them the easiest to reload on my machine. Other hulls would get stuck on some parts of the loader or the crimp wouldn't hold over time. I was sold on the idea that Federal hulls were "the bees knees". Then one day somebody had read my post on here about my current shotgun reloads with the Top Gun hulls and mentioned that they have a paper/ fiber base wad. If the base wad has ever been exposed to water/moisture then it will break down and could cause barrel obstructions, or even just normal breakdown of the wad itself over the course of time. I did not know that about the hulls I was using. So I took the liberty of cracking open a few more common hulls so you can see the difference in quality of the hull that you could possibly use for reloading. 

These are the base wads of 4 different hulls that have been fired, reloaded, and fired again. The first one on the left is a Federal Champion Paper hull. It has a fiber base wad that only after 2 firings has started to break down quite a bit. There are noticeable separation cracks throughout the wad. The second from the left is a Federal Top Gun hull also with a paper/ fiber base wad. It seemed to hold up a little bit better than the Champion but there are still noticeable signs of the wad breaking down. The third hull is a Winchester Super Target. It has a separate base wad insert. It shows very little to no wear in it. The white plastic insert is hardly even discolored from the powder. The only problem that I have with reloading this hull is not the base wad, its the quality of the rest of the hull. The plastic is very thin and soft. They tend to mushroom out at the top when you crimp them. I have also had trouble with the final crimp holding after a long period of time. Ill pick up a box that I had loaded a few months back and have shot rolling out of the corners. Finally all the way on the right is a Remington Gun Club. These have been my hull of choice to reload lately. The overall structure of the hull is great. Very rigid durable walls. Its hard to tell they are even reloads most of the time. They hold their shape very well, and the base wad is all once solid piece of the hull. It's not fiber/paper nor is it a plastic insert. its just one solid molded hull base wad and all. After I had reloaded the Gun Clubs several times I cut one down and the inside of it still looks as if it were brand new out of the bag. I hope that this helped out those that were un-aware much like I was. More updates and projects to come!

The Winchester

Over the weekend it was abnormally warm in Chicago. So a friend of mine suggested that we make the best use of the weather and go to the range. We ended up going to the Winchester Gun Club in Franksville, WI. We had a blast to say the least. Its a shotgun only club. We dabbled in some skeet, trap, 5 stand, and sporting clays. After spending the day there we were looking at the memberships on the way out, and realized that if we would have just become members at the beginning of the day they would have pretty much paid for themselves already. The gentleman overheard the comment and cut us a deal. He took all the money that we would have saved on our rounds and applied it to the cost of the membership. Twelve dollars and 5 minutes later we were the two newest members of the Winchester Gun Club! Now I have plenty of hulls to reload in the near future.

Also under the press now is a new .45ACP load. I changed over from the 185gr. HP to a 200 gr. alloy SWC. still using the AA#5 powder at about 6.8.gr I'll have to go to the range this weekend and see how they perform. Thats about it for now until I receive some parts to finish the Marlin project. Next on the list is going to be some 9mm wad cutters and possibly refurbishing an old duty revolver for a friend of mine. 

Updates and new projects!

Okay so it has been a while since I posted last, but can you blame me. Who wants to sit inside during the summer when you can be out enjoying the weather. Now that the temperature in Chicago has dropped down its a little less inviting to stay outside as much. So its time to jump back into the swing of things. Recently I acquired an 8mm Mauser sporting rifle that was beat to piss. The stock was in terrible shape, most of the bluing was worn away, and the interior of the barrel was caked with oxidation. Unfortunately I was so excited to start working on it that I completely forgot to take pictures of it beforehand. Ill do an update once the stock is finished hardening with "after" pictures though. The end product is very  nice.

Moving on to a little bit of a shop update. I have moved onto casting and sizing my own bullets now! My grandpa supplied me with one of his extra sizers and I have been going to town with it. My first batch of bullets that I created are .45ACP 200gr Semi-Wadcutter. I currently have some brass in the tumbler getting cleaned up. Once that is finished I'll have to reset my Blue Press and play around with a few different loads I have been looking at.

After I'm done with the .45ACP I think I'm going to move onto loading up some 9mm. I'm starting to run a little low and now that I can cast it will be even more affordable to shoot.

Time to get down to business. My newest project that I have taken on is a very special one. Recently I  have decided to focus a bit more on Gunsmith work and restoration. A friend of mine came to me with her late brothers Marlin mod.336a 30-30. When she dropped it off I immediately noticed that it had been sitting around for quite a while. There was no oil to be found anywhere on the rifle. There was also a decent amount of rust starting to form on all components of the rifle. last but not least the action was stuck open. It took quite a bit of force to get it closed, and when it did I could tell that something had malfunctioned.

Turned out that end of the carrier rocker had snapped off. Fortunately enough it is not expensive, but it is also not as available as an entire carrier assembly. Regardless I ordered one up and I should expect to see it in the next few weeks. In the mean time while I wait for the part to arrive I decided to start working on all the rust and oxidation on the rest of the rifle. With a little bit of patience, Hoppe's no. 9, and some 0000 steel wool I got to work. I was worried that I would have to re-blue a few areas once I knocked off the rust, but to my surprise the bluing was hardly affected at all. 

*Before* Notice all the surface rust on the lower part of the receiver body. Also the bolt had lots of marring.

*Before* The lever was coated in surface rust inside and out. the trigger assembly was almost as bad.

*After* The Hoppe's no. 9 solvent really breaks down the rust. The 0000 steel wool does an excellent job of taking away the imperfections but does not affect the bluing in any way

The bolt had many marred spots on it. I used some Blue Magic metal polish and an old cotton rag to buff the metal at first. After I gave it a good once over I used a two stage 6" buffing wheel to give it a near mirror finish on it.

Not much to do now except wait for the carrier rocker to come in and put it all back together.

Glow Sights

So last time I went to the range I noticed that unless in a well lit room the sights on my 9mm Taurus were just not cutting it anymore. The white rear sight was a dingy grey and could hardly see any color on the front as well. After searching around the internet I came to a conclusion that the cheapest way would be to just re-paint them rather than replace them with another set.

Then I thought to myself if I'm going to paint them I may as well try to find some lume paint but that was fairly expensive and hard to find. So I went to the local arts and crafts store in the area and picked up some regular glow in the dark craft paint.

After a few coats I left it under a regular desk lamp for a minute or so and then killed all the lights in the room. It was actually glowing fairly decent for not being exposed to any UV light. Now, time to get to the range and test it out ! I may bring a UV light to give it a quick boost if the glow starts to fade.