Regular visitors to my blog may remember a project last year entitled "Project Deer Stalker" in which I turned an ordinary looking Savage/Stevens model 325C rifle into a real beauty.
See the final post of that project here.
Well I found another one in need of love. This one a model 325A, made in 1947.
The Good:
The bore is excellent, shiny and sharp
The action is tight and appears to be in good mechanical shape
I only paid $10 + tax for the rifle.
The Bad:
Someone braze welded a ball bearing to the end of the once graceful spoon handle
The butt plate and screws are MIA
The rear trigger guard screw is also missing
There was no magazine
The metal is rusty
The stock has a crappy finish on it, a horrible attempt at an embellishment, someone also removed material from the wrist area and it is just plain ugly, see for yourself:
Someone removed the butt plate
The aforementioned ball bearing, also note the wood missing from behind the action, it appears someone tried to thin the wrist to fit a small handed shooter.
Someone attempted to dress up the stock by adding a diamond of mother of pearl.....they missed the mark in more ways than one
The rifle came without a magazine, they are available, but will cost 3-4 times what I paid for the gun.....
Before we get too excited, I needed to test fire the gun. So I brought it with me on a camping trip and was able to fire a couple of rounds through the old gal.....
Everything worked as it should with one exception, the empties would not eject, after a deeper inspection I found the ejector spring is broken. Something I will need to remedy.
There are several directions I could go with this gun. I already have one that is pretty, so I began thinking of other ways in which I build this rifle.
Paint or Cerakote, go with a camo theme? example here
Build a custom stock, maybe a thumb-hole? Like my 10/22 Target Rifle Project.. and combine the thumb-hole with a camo paint job??
Just clean and refinish everything, using the original stock, keeping the cost minimal? Similar to my Marlin 25M project here
No matter which direction I take, I want to try and keep the budget under a $100.
Of course I could throw all of that out the window and find a new bolt handle (or polish and chrome the old one), reblue the metal parts and install a new stock like the ones below.
The folks I bought my last stock from occasionally list new walnut ones on ebay for around $120 + shipping.
Gunville also has reproduction walnut stocks, they look pretty nice and sell for just over $100 with shipping
Bob's Gun Shop has standard replacement stocks for $125 and these thumb-hole laminated stocks for $175.
Walnut Grove Gunstocks also sells a thumb-hole stock for the Savage 325/340 rifles, the price is $195
Stay tuned
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