About Me: A certified yet non-professional gunsmith learning the trade through trail and inspiration

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Friday, December 30, 2016

2016 Wrap up

What a year we have had eh? While we lost some good people...... Nancy Reagan, Fred Thompson and Justice Scalia.

We also had a landmark election that has given us a presumably pro-gun Congress and White House.....

The best part is that the panic buying/hoarding will now stop and we can buy guns, ammo and powder at reasonable prices again!

Then late last month we heard that El Diablo has come to claim another of his sons....ol' Fidel will be joining his comrades in hell. I guess he will finally be a good Communist (as you know the only good Communist is a dead Communist...)


Here at the blog we had our busiest year yet, reaching 100 blog posts in a year and setting records for the number of daily visitors (December was especially busy).

Looking back at our posts we could call this the year of the 10/22, as we had several 10/22 projects and the whole month of March was dedicated to the rifle.
There were other projects along the way, we restored an M1903A3 and re-blued a couple of other guns...we also visited a few gun related places...I didn't get to make a knife from scratch, or a gun either....just too much on my plate I guess



January


February

March

April

May

June


July


August

September

October


November

December


330 blog posts in and I still have a lot of things to bring you.....

Looking forward, I have plenty of articles already written (in various stages of development) and have more planned.
  • As always you can expect more restoration & modification projects. That is the core of this blog and hopefully always will be
  • We will attempt (again) to get into knife making, starting with the building of a filing jig
  • We will also make an attempt at building a gun from scratch, we have a couple of projects in the works
  • The following articles will appear monthly:
    • Featured Gun Articles, we have some in the can and some more planned
    • Guest Builds, if I can find enough of them
    • Interesting Firearm Photos
    • Gun Porn


Happy New Year Everyone!



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Monday, December 26, 2016

Words of Wisdom

I decided to assemble some of my favorite quotes and share them with my readers.

This first one is taken from what I believe to be the single greatest political speech in American history. It was given by Ronald Reagan on behalf of Barry Goldwater during the 1964 Presidential Campaign.

"This idea -- that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves." - Ronald Wilson Reagan, from A Time for Choosing, October 27th, 1964


"One bleeding-heart type asked me in a recent interview if I did not agree that 'violence begets violence.' I told him that it is my earnest endeavor to see that it does. I would like very much to ensure — and in some cases I have — that any man who offers violence to his fellow citizen begets a whole lot more in return than he can enjoy." - Jeff Cooper

"Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government, buy illegal for the citizenry" - Thomas Jefferson

“An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.”- Robert A. Heinlein from Beyond This Horizon

“Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.” - Teddy Roosevelt  

"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" - Patrick Henry, St. John's Church, Richmond, Virginia March 23, 1775

“Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.” - Bryan Magee

 "A right delayed is a right denied" - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"......No, if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide.” - Abraham Lincoln

“In every country where independence has taken the place of liberty, the first desire of a manly heart is to possess a weapon which at once renders him capable of defence or attack, and, by rendering its owner fearsome, makes him feared.” ― Alexander Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

"Of the people killed with guns every year, how many are true 'tragedies,' and how many are we frankly better off without?"- From The Good Riddance Factor by Mark Moritz

"The media insist that crime is the major concern of the American public today. In this connection they generally push the point that a disarmed society would be a crime-free society. They will not accept the truth that if you take all the guns off the street you still will have a crime problem, whereas if you take the criminals off the street you cannot have a gun problem." - Jeff Cooper

"I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.” – Thomas Jefferson

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” ― George Orwell

"In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot." - Mark Twain

"The Nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a Master and deserves one." - Alexander Hamilton 

“Most gun control arguments miss the point. If all control boils fundamentally to force, how can one resist aggression without equal force? How can a truly “free” state exist if the individual citizen is enslaved to the forceful will of individual or organized aggressors? It cannot.”  - Tiffany Madison

 

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." - Robert A. Heinlein, from Time Enough for Love: Notebooks of Lazarus Lo. 


"Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum" - Publius Flavius Vegetius Renutas: De Re Militari (If you seek peace, prepare for war)

“The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere restrains evil interference – they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good.” – George Washington

“A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.”  - Teddy Roosevelt

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” – Benjamin Franklin. 

“Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming it's not an individual right or that it's too much of a public safety hazard, don't see the danger in the big picture. They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like.”  - Alan M. Dershowitz

" An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it" - Jeff Cooper 

"If you can't trust people with freedom, how can you trust people with power? - Anonymous

"Hey, join the fucking club! I thought I was going to be the starting center fielder for the Boston Red Sox! Life sucks, get a fucking helmet!"  - Denis Leary


"When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gangbanger, and a single gay guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender." - Mark Kloos, from Why the Gun is Civilization



"A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity." - Don B. Kates Jr, paraphrasing Dr. Sigmund Freud's 10th Lecture: Symbolism in Dreams

"Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property... Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them." - Thomas Paine



"You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream-the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, "The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits."
- Ronald Wilson Reagan, from A Time for Choosing, October 27th, 1964

“That rifle on the wall of the labourer's cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there.” – George Orwell

"Gun control: The theory that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her panty hose, is somehow morally superior to a woman explaining to police how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound." — unknown


"The conclusions seem inescapable that in certain circles a tendency has arisen to fear people who fear government. Government, as the Father of Our Country put it so well, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. People who understand history, especially the history of government, do well to fear it. For a people to express openly their fear of those of us who are afraid of tyranny is alarming. Fear of the state is in no sense subversive. It is, to the contrary, the healthiest political philosophy for a free people." - Jeff Cooper

"Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want to be controlled and those that have no such desire" - Robert Heinlein

 
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Friday, December 23, 2016

December 2016 Gun Porn


I hope everyone out there has a safe and Merry Christmas!

















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Monday, December 19, 2016

Remington 1100 restoration part 3

This part 3 of this restoration, If you missed the previous installments see parts one and two to get up to speed.

After getting the gun back together I still needed to find a butt pad.
The original butt pad was plastic or aluminum and has a slight curve to it. This butt stock had been cut square at some point to install a softer recoil absorbing pad. So I needed to find a recoil pad that would fit the look of the gun. The factory Remington ones I found online would not fit the older models, so I looked for a black one that wouldn't clash with the classic look of the model 1100. We also didn't want to spend an arm & a leg.

I found this one on ebay for just $10, it was slightly longer than what I needed but the other dimensions were really close and it was a grind to fit design

After a trial fit I realized that to bring back the classic look I needed a white spacer. 


I found a piece of white plastic that was close to the color and thickness of the spacer on the grip cap, so I traced out the recoil pad and trimmed it (a little larger than needed)



I was able to fit the pad with only some minor scuffing of the wood
 I buffed the wood with 0000 steel wool and then wiped it down with Acetone.


Then I coat the butt stock with several coats of Tru-Oil to get it to match the rest of the wood. Here is coat #1


After three coats we had what I thought was a pretty good match for the rest of the wood. So I reassembled the gun for the final pictures

I forgot to take pics of the nitre bluing of the pins and charging handle, but you can see the color below










Before and after









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Friday, December 16, 2016

Interesting Firearm Photos IV





Because of a shortage of Anti-Aircraft guns in the Canadian forces, strange contraptions such as this tandem mount were developed. In this case they used two Bren Machine guns with 30-round magazines. 






A newly liberated Jew holds a Nazi at gun point or bayonet point rather


A U.S. Marine and his M1911-A1 pistol about to enter a tunnel in Vietnam




Bolivian Soldiers pose with the body of Mass Murderer and Communist Agitator Che Guevara, October 9, 1967



The Canadian Ross semi-auto prototype rifle, it sold at auction in 2013 for $11,500



A gun graveyard in Vietnam...



Miniature AK-47 with grenade launcher




This .44 Colt Walker (Uberti reproduction) was used in both the films True Grit (the original) and in The Outlaw Josie Wales



Steering wheel made to hold two Walther PPK pistols...I believe the guns are not real and are just cosmetic. As a side note the guns are called ".45s" by the website hosting the picture....the PPK was never chambered in .45 caliber.




A Maxim Machine gun, left behind during WWII has grown into a tree in a Russian forest


Another creative use for an Ammo Can

  
A real life Banana Magazine



Sources
Perth Regiment
Slightly Warped
Forgotten Weapons
Armory Blog 
Strange Dangers 
Daily Mail 

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 source has been credited. If you own the copyright to any of these images and wish them to be credited or removed, please contact me immediately.
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Monday, December 12, 2016

Remington 1100 restoration part 2

This is part two of this refinishing project, in part one you will see the horrible finish that resulted from contaminated bluing salts.
So I started over by applying a coating of naval jelly and letting it sit for a minute or two and rinsing with water. A bit of Deja Vu...



Then I began polishing the metal again, this time we had no pits to deal with, so the polishing went much faster, this is a 400 grit

I could leave it at a 400 grit level and the gun would look good when blued, but the owner wanted a high polish job, so we stepped up to 600, then 800, then 1000, then 2000 and finally 2400 grit Crocus cloth. The barrel got the same treatment

We used Brownells Oxynate 7 and got wonderful results
 





The owner asked for my help with the stock, so he brought it to me to install a new recoil pad, refinish the wood and assemble the gun

This is what the wood looked like when he brought it to me. We decided not to refinish the entire stock, but instead clean it up and install a new factory original butt plate

After talking with the owner I learned that this gun has significant sentimental value, as his grandfather purchased it new and had made a repair to the forend.

The owners brother made an attempt at installing a recoil pad at one time, not sure what the electrical tape was for....check out the figure in the wood though..
 You can see the repair made below


begin re-assembly, the bolt was pretty dirty


I scrubbed every nook and cranny and then gave it a bit of a polish. It hasn't been this clean since it left Ilion.
The operating handle and pins were polished for nitre bluing
 

 The instructions for the piston were still legible



In the next installment we will find and install a recoil pad, finish the pins and operating handle in nitre blue and complete the re-assembly







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