Gun Porn for April

Gun Porn time!

 Photo courtesy of Mob Guns

 Photo courtesy of Stoney from The High Road

 

  Photo courtesy of jaxenro from Percussion Revolvers

 Photo courtesy of

  Photo courtesy of Rusty Shackleford on Youtube

 Photo courtesy of fred_ex on Gun Boards

Photo courtesy of Gemini Customs

 Photo courtesy of Salient Arms International

 Photo courtesy of

 Photo courtesy of

 Photo courtesy of
 

 Photo courtesy of Turnbull Restoration & Manufacturing

   

 Photo courtesy of Rock Island Auction Co.

Photo courtesy of mm6mm6 from Smith & Wesson Forums

Photo courtesy of Turnbull Restoration & Manufacturing



The pictures above were found freely on the world wide web and are used under the guidelines of Fair Use, per Title 17 of the U.S. Code. Where possible the owners of the pictures or the locations where they were found have been credited below the image.
If you own the copyright to any of these images and wish them to be credited or removed, please contact me immediately.

Refreshing a Mossberg model 800 Rifle

My neighbor brought me a couple of guns that he wanted me to appraise and clean up. He planned on selling the guns and since they had not been fired or even looked at in a long time, he wanted me to "freshen" them up a bit. One of the guns was this Mossberg model 800A rifle. 

 These were made from 1967 to 1980, designed by Louis W. Seecamp. You may recognize that name as the creator of the Seecamp pistol:

 Note the serial # on this one....maybe they were attempting to displace the Walther PPK as Agent 007's side arm?

Back to the Mossberg. The model 800 was created at the behest of either Montgomery Wards Department stores or Western Auto (or maybe both??), both of which sold many brand labeled guns made by companies like Mossberg.

By the mid 1960's the bolt action rifle had pretty much been perfected. 
Using elements from the Mauser 98, the Japanese Arisaka and the Weatherby, Seecamp built a gun that was well thought out and tough. Many have reported excellent accuracy with the Model 800 as well. 
While doing some research on this model I found a lot of stories that ended with "I wish I hadn't sold it", which in my book is the best kind of review.

I find it interesting that this gun was a lower end, economy priced gun in its day and today it would be a mid to higher end gun. This is a similar story to the Savage model 110.

The Mossberg 800 came in different calibers which were designated by a letter following the model number. The 800A, the most common, was chambered in .308 Winchester, the 800B in .243 and the 800C in .22-250. These were standard grades, Mossberg also made a higher end version with Mannlicher style stocks and factory mounted scopes. In addition they made another bolt action rifle (with a slightly different design) that was a long action for the .30-'06, it was called the model 810.

This particular gun, with a 5-digit serial number was made in 1969 or 1970. 
You can contact the folks at Haviln Sales & Service with your inquiries, they sell all things Mossberg and are the quintessential experts.

This gun will need some good cleaning. I will disassemble the bolt & trigger assembly. I will polish the bolt and oil the internals and wax the external surfaces metal surfaces as well as the internal & external wood.
Here are the before pictures, you can see small rust spots...

Before I dis-assemble any gun I inspect it and clean it. Scrubbing the bore with a brass brush and Hoppes #9.

Once the bore and chamber are clean, dis-assembly starts with removing the barreled action from the stock.

Then remove the trigger components from the action, the trigger assembly housing is made of plastic

Then we dis-assemble the bolt

The firing pin had some corrosion and gummed up grease/oil. This is a bad thing, if the firing pin hangs up you could get a hang-fire (a delayed fire) which could prove to be deadly. After cleaning the gunk, I polished the bolt body and firing pin on the buffer.

I then began cleaning the metal. I used 0000 Steel Wool and some gun oil to gently remove the small rust spots.

After the oil & steel wool treatment I moved to carnuba wax. Two coats on the barreled action

I also wax the interior and exterior of the stock. Many people forget the interior, but that wood needs some conditioning too. The oil in the wax will help the wood from drying and splitting.

Don't worry if you can't get all the wax out of the crevices, it wont hurt anything to leave it there.

Before buttoning everything back up, I cleaned & waxed the exterior of the scope, cleaned the glass and then rubbed some leather dressing into the sling.

The gun is now presentable.

Before and after:

Links


Gun Parts Corp
Gun Data
Havlin Sales & Service

Making a Pistol Display Box 2nd Attempt

This post is about building a display box for your favorite pistol. Some of the finer guns have come from the factory in a wood display box and I thought I might build some for myself. 


Here are some examples of some nice display boxes.

I had this wood cut for me a few years ago and never did anything with them. After making an old cigar box into a nice case for my Bearcat I decided to build these ones.

The dimensions for the top & bottom are 7 1/16" X 9 7/16" x 1/2" thick. The front & back are 2 1/16 x 9 7/16", the sides are 6 3/16" x 2 1/16". 
I wish he would have cut the pieces bigger, this really limits what guns will fit.

The wood is Maple, but I plan on staining it a walnut color and coating it with spar urethane.
Here are the pieces I am starting with (I actually did two of these at once):

I am using Elmer's Wood Glue Max to glue the pieces together.

I have very limited wood working tools. How you like that old linoleum? It was already in the room when I turned it into my gun room, I figured why spend the money when it might get chemicals spilled on it anyway??

It now looks like a box, the next step is to sand and clean up the wood in preparation for stain and sealer

I sanded the box(es) with 60 grit, then 100, then 220 and finally 500 grit sand paper using a palm "jitterbug" sander.

Nice and smooth now, ready for stain

 I had two brands of dark walnut stain, the one on the left is Minwax, on the right is Cabot. The Cabot did not seem to soak into the wood. I went with the Minwax. (this is the bottom side)

After two coats of stain, once the coverage is complete, I will rub them down with 0000 steel wool and then coat with 3-4 coats of Minwax Helmsman Spar Urathane

I am not sure if I like the way the stain looks. At this point I do not want to start over. Perhaps on the next set I will use a different stain, maybe leave the natural maple color?

This 1st box will be for a Walther PPK & PPK/s

Next I cut some blue velvet material for the bottom of the box

 Trial fitting the Walther PPK

 Next I cut some foam in the outline of the pistol

 I added slots for two magazines

 I then cut a cardboard template to support the foam

Then I used contact cement to attach the fabric to the cardboard.


Then I cut the fabric to match the inside of the box and the gun & magazine cut-outs

Trial fitting

Then cut and glue the side pieces

 

The final step is to install the hinges

Done!