Were having a terrible summer this year, its rained every second day, bla, this morning I had the dogs out and thinking about the rain it popped into my head how I stumbled on an easy solution to the kinda weather we have here in Nova Scotia.
It was about 15 or so years ago, and this guy brought his Remington 1187 into be blued, it was a mess, he wanted a matt finish so I bead blasted it and gave it a black oxide finish he was really pleased and when away quite happy. It was a standard job no big deal for me I'v done it a few times.
About a year and a half later I get a call from this same guy he wants to put a syn stock on it, he had picked one up on a trip to the states, I told to drop it over and I'd do for him, I was interested to see how the finish held up, I was shocked it was in the same state of it, it look like it was before I blued it, maybe worse. I put the stock on he took his gun and left, but it set my mind to work.
The burning question for me was how could I do a finsh on salt water guns that would hold up, more than a season or two, there were all kinds of expensive and complicated answers but I need something that I would do the job, quickly and cheaply and make a nice profit as well.
I did'nt come to me till one day I had to talk to my nieghbour about something and he was putting in a kitchen counter, he's a do'it yourselfer type and he had gotten this counter top spray, it's textured with spekcles in it, but it has to be sealed, the idea hit me, I could use an automotive clear coat it comes in gloss and matt.
Well to make a long story short it worked, I offered it to my customers for an extra charge of course, it was easy to do, after bluing and the oil bath I'd deagrease the gun and give it a coat of clear coat, matt or gloss whatever the customer wanted. Only had one come back, I did'nt degrease it good enough, and in a small area it pealed.
Tom
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Scope Were To Begin
I have mounted a lot of scopes from the cheap promo Bushnell and Tasco, higher quailty Bushnell and Tasco to the Bauch and Lomb, Leupold, Redfield, Ziess, with a heaping helping of Burris and Simmonds. I've used Weaver Mounts, Redfield, Leupold, Wideview, Ironsighter, B-Square, and many types of European brands.
I mounted them on $25.00 army surplus Lee Enfields to $10,000 Sniper rifles, and the thing is it dosent matter what the job is, the basic steps apply to all.
Inspect the rifle, I don't care if it's an old crowbar or the latest manifestation of Remington, Browning, Savage, Tikia, Sako or the late great Winchester RIP, right out of the box, you have to check it out so you can determine if the rifle will shoot, I'v see rifles right out of the box that, had bad triggers, poor stock fitting, holes drilled off, reciever poorly milled, mount a scope on one of those without correcting it or at least telling the customer and it is not pretty, been there done it, a 40 min job turns into 6 or 8 hour and you won't get paid for it either. It happens rearly, the manufacture do thier best, but once in a while a bad one gets thru, for the most part its the owners that screw up their own guns, I'll talk about that in later posts.
Once you determine the rifle is OK then check out the mounts, some times you can get a bad one, it happens but its rare.
If your rifle needs to be drilled take it to a Gunsmith with lots of experience, I know alot of you guys have a buddy thats a cracker jack machinist and he'll do it for $2o bucks, screw that, I have had to fix up alot of those, machinist don't have the tooling or the knowledge for gun work, I know this because I started as a machinist and I had to learn a lot before I got to know what I was doing, my instructor in trade school, a master machinist warned me to get a gunsmithing course before I stared to work on guns, because of the specialized knowledge you need, thanks Jackie wherever you are.
Once your gun is drilled and tapped, or if you have a pre drilled, it time to degrease the holes, boys you want the holes oil free your going to put Loc-Tite in there to hold the screws and oil will weaken the holding power of the Loc-Tite. But before you do that your going to do a compleate mounting to see if the scope will line up in what I call center range, with the bore. All center range is the position of the crosshairs is as close to the center of the scope and in line with the bore's center. If it doesent line up you will need to line it up, the easiest way is with shims, the other way requries altering the bases I don't recomend this unless you have a lot of experience.
Now that you have the scope in center range, take it all apart and do the mounting, first Loc-Tite the holes, use a little bit, use blue Loc-tite or Gun-Tite samething only Loc-Tite the base screws, and only Loc-Tite steel to steel, the steel screws into the steel reciever, you should never Loc-Tite into Aluminum. When you tighten the screws, you should have a screwdriver that fits the screw head, I use Forster Screwdrives, I like them best, because there made for Gunsmiths, there ground straight and will fit the screw slot so it wont slip you can get them from Forster or Brownells.
Back to tighting the screws, turn the screw in till it bottoms, with the gun in a padded vise and the proper screwdriver then give it a 1/4 to a 1/3 crunch turn, you'll feel it seat in, To my knowledge I have never had one lossen, and I have remounted scopes I did back in the 80's and they were still tight, 20 years later.
Except for the Loc-Tite thread all the screws the same.
Now that you have the scope mounted in center range and everything is tight its time to bore sight, I use a Bushnell Boresighter, the secret is to check your boresighter with a rifle that is already zeroed at the range, one that you know is dead on, once you know where the zero is on you boresighter you can adjust you newmounted scope,
You not finished yet, now its time for the range, I have a sure fire method to zeroing at the range its simple big target short distance.
What I mean is I set up at 25yd's with a 4 foot target a big piece of cardboard, mark a big cross on it and put the cross hairs over the cross, even is its off a foot, I can still see the hit and adjust for it, 3 shots and you should be on, now its time to zero at the distance you want. it's so simple by half, it paid my mortgage.
Tom
I mounted them on $25.00 army surplus Lee Enfields to $10,000 Sniper rifles, and the thing is it dosent matter what the job is, the basic steps apply to all.
Inspect the rifle, I don't care if it's an old crowbar or the latest manifestation of Remington, Browning, Savage, Tikia, Sako or the late great Winchester RIP, right out of the box, you have to check it out so you can determine if the rifle will shoot, I'v see rifles right out of the box that, had bad triggers, poor stock fitting, holes drilled off, reciever poorly milled, mount a scope on one of those without correcting it or at least telling the customer and it is not pretty, been there done it, a 40 min job turns into 6 or 8 hour and you won't get paid for it either. It happens rearly, the manufacture do thier best, but once in a while a bad one gets thru, for the most part its the owners that screw up their own guns, I'll talk about that in later posts.
Once you determine the rifle is OK then check out the mounts, some times you can get a bad one, it happens but its rare.
If your rifle needs to be drilled take it to a Gunsmith with lots of experience, I know alot of you guys have a buddy thats a cracker jack machinist and he'll do it for $2o bucks, screw that, I have had to fix up alot of those, machinist don't have the tooling or the knowledge for gun work, I know this because I started as a machinist and I had to learn a lot before I got to know what I was doing, my instructor in trade school, a master machinist warned me to get a gunsmithing course before I stared to work on guns, because of the specialized knowledge you need, thanks Jackie wherever you are.
Once your gun is drilled and tapped, or if you have a pre drilled, it time to degrease the holes, boys you want the holes oil free your going to put Loc-Tite in there to hold the screws and oil will weaken the holding power of the Loc-Tite. But before you do that your going to do a compleate mounting to see if the scope will line up in what I call center range, with the bore. All center range is the position of the crosshairs is as close to the center of the scope and in line with the bore's center. If it doesent line up you will need to line it up, the easiest way is with shims, the other way requries altering the bases I don't recomend this unless you have a lot of experience.
Now that you have the scope in center range, take it all apart and do the mounting, first Loc-Tite the holes, use a little bit, use blue Loc-tite or Gun-Tite samething only Loc-Tite the base screws, and only Loc-Tite steel to steel, the steel screws into the steel reciever, you should never Loc-Tite into Aluminum. When you tighten the screws, you should have a screwdriver that fits the screw head, I use Forster Screwdrives, I like them best, because there made for Gunsmiths, there ground straight and will fit the screw slot so it wont slip you can get them from Forster or Brownells.
Back to tighting the screws, turn the screw in till it bottoms, with the gun in a padded vise and the proper screwdriver then give it a 1/4 to a 1/3 crunch turn, you'll feel it seat in, To my knowledge I have never had one lossen, and I have remounted scopes I did back in the 80's and they were still tight, 20 years later.
Except for the Loc-Tite thread all the screws the same.
Now that you have the scope mounted in center range and everything is tight its time to bore sight, I use a Bushnell Boresighter, the secret is to check your boresighter with a rifle that is already zeroed at the range, one that you know is dead on, once you know where the zero is on you boresighter you can adjust you newmounted scope,
You not finished yet, now its time for the range, I have a sure fire method to zeroing at the range its simple big target short distance.
What I mean is I set up at 25yd's with a 4 foot target a big piece of cardboard, mark a big cross on it and put the cross hairs over the cross, even is its off a foot, I can still see the hit and adjust for it, 3 shots and you should be on, now its time to zero at the distance you want. it's so simple by half, it paid my mortgage.
Tom
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
About this blog
Hi everyone, I'm Tom and I'm a Gunsmith, have been since 1985, what I intend to do with this is to share, some of the knowledge I have picked up while working at the bench for the last 23 years, I have worked on most everything in this time but mainly repairs to rifles and shotguns, hunting guns, not that I have anything against handguns or target rifles, but for me the local market was for the most part hunting guns, and thats what I know best.
I did back in the late 80's and early 90's shoot competive service rifle and did very well in fact on a day in July 1990, I was the top service rifle shooter in Eastern Canada, I say for a day because you only as good as your last win, and that was a sweet one, Ill be talking about service rifle shooting as well.
I plan to talk about alot of things related to the care, maintance, repair , scopes, mounting of scopes, refinishing and blue of guns as well. Generally what ever comes into my head, about a subject that's very dear to me, I hope you enjoy what I have to say and I'm sure some of you will disagree with what I have to say, and I invite your comments, your praise or your best an arsehole Tom type comments.
I hope you can bear with me as far a my grammar goes I'l do my best as a writer, but I make a better Gunsmith.
Tom
I did back in the late 80's and early 90's shoot competive service rifle and did very well in fact on a day in July 1990, I was the top service rifle shooter in Eastern Canada, I say for a day because you only as good as your last win, and that was a sweet one, Ill be talking about service rifle shooting as well.
I plan to talk about alot of things related to the care, maintance, repair , scopes, mounting of scopes, refinishing and blue of guns as well. Generally what ever comes into my head, about a subject that's very dear to me, I hope you enjoy what I have to say and I'm sure some of you will disagree with what I have to say, and I invite your comments, your praise or your best an arsehole Tom type comments.
I hope you can bear with me as far a my grammar goes I'l do my best as a writer, but I make a better Gunsmith.
Tom
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