The Winchester 77 Project Part 1

I bought this sad looking Winchester model 77 from a local forum member. It was in not so great shape, but everything was there, it just needed some TLC.

If you missed my write up about this model, click here to see it. 

The model 77 was introduced in 1955, the one above is a first year production gun.

The rifle was in definite need of some love, in it's current condition it has no collector value, in fact the guy I bought it from said he bought it just for a "wall hanger", believing it could never be beautiful again.....I'll show him... :)

One operational item noticed right away was the broken safety, it does not stay put

The gun has the original magazine, which is worth as much or more than I paid for the gun

 The butt plate does not fit the stock, it could be from a different rifle, as the measurements provided for the reproduction one is larger than this one. I will buy a reproduction butt plate and fit it to the wood. The stock is also rounded at the butt plate, showing what happens when you sand a stock without the butt plate in place.

Some heathen drilled and tapped the receiver, and did a crappy job at that. I will sand them with the receiver, then glass bead blast the top of it to help them blend in

I had to wait a while after buying it to test fire it, once I did, the gun functioned just fine. Time to move forward with this project


Here are my plans

• Fix the safety
• Purchase a reproduction butt plate and fit it to the wood
• Add period correct sling swiverls
• Strip and refinish the wood in a satin oil finish
• Strip and polish the metal to a high shine
• Blast the top of the receiver with glass bead for a matte finish
• Reblue the metal  parts
• Possibly install a scope

Here are the parts I rounded up for this project

A reproduction butt plate, it is slightly larger than the original, so we can grind it to fit

A vintage 1" leather sling

A set of 1" Williams (or Winchester?) sling swivels, they were rusty, so I cleaned them up and reblued them

A set of vintage Millet .22 rings

a generic 2-7 x 32mm scope

The first step I took was to remove the butt plate screws and restore, them. I know this seems like a weird first step, but I wanted to restore the stock before working on the metal and because I have to fit a new butt plate, it made sense to start with the screws

I used the wire wheel to remove the corrosion so I could see how bad they were

Then I wrapped the threads with tape and chucked them into my drill, starting with 100 grit and finishing with 600 grit

Stay tuned.....