A blog dedicated to the love of guns, gun restoration, repair and customization
About Me: A certified yet non-professional gunsmith learning the trade through trail and inspiration
Monday, July 21, 2025
Wednesday, July 16, 2025
Uncle Mike's Winchester 94 project Part 3
This is the final post for this project, see part 1 here and part 2 here.
Now that the parts are polished and rust/pit free, we need to ready them for the bluing tank.
I like to use Acetone, as it leaves no residue and removes oil, buffing compound or anything else left behind.
The small parts go in these handy baskets
Here they are simmering in the bluing tank, I will have a post on how I blue guns coming soon.
After bluing, I put them in the boiling water rinse tank, then to the mobil work bench to be coated in water displacing oil
The last step of course, is reassembly. Once assembled, I wax the steel and wood.
Finished!
Friday, July 11, 2025
Uncle Mike's Winchester 94 project Part 2
See Part 1 here
After getting the wood ready it was time to start on the metal. I tried to remove the front sight as the bead is aluminum and would be eaten up by the bluing salts.
As you can see I ran into a snag, the whole sight ramp decided to go AWOL. The picture above and second one below show that the solder only attached in a small spot at the rear of the sight.
So I cleaned up the bottom of the sight and the area of the barrel where it attaches. The area under the sight had some pitting.
After getting the barrel sanded and all pits removed, I reinstalled the front sight.
We used the Stay Bright kit from Midway USA.
The first step was to apply flux to the bottom of the sight, then heat with a propane torch and apply the solder (sorry no pics).
then I temporarily installed the rear sight and leveled the rifle.
Then we cleaned the barrel, added flux and mounted the front sight where it needed to go, keeping track of the space in front and back of the sight. It needed to be 3/8" or so from the muzzle, but not far back enough to block the installation of the front barrel clamp.
We then painted the metal around the sight with cold blue to prevent any solder from sticking to the barrel.
Then I started on the screws, even the screws were pitted. I started by soaking them in vinegar to remove the old bluing.
I then laid down a piece of 1 x 4 pine on my work bench and covered it with 100 grit sandpaper, I spun the screw and pushed it into the paper, just 10-15 seconds. Then I moved up to 150, 220, 280, 320, 400 and finally 600 grit. I save my old pieces of sandpaper for this, they always have edges or corners that are still intact, this is a great use for them.