What gunsmithing or repairs have you done today

.......finished punch to join the others in the drawer.

Went out to Walton earlier today, @troy fairweather, your dad was in good spirits though he may be a little sore, with my 51 LA Corina large ring 98 mauser action. AL, Troy's dad, decided to change barrels on his fn mauser and sold me his old 280 ai barrel that only has about 200 rds through. This barrel iwas quite accurate on his fn mauser, as I witnessed on a range trip we made a couple months ago. We installed the barrel onto my action and needed to reheadspace for barrel on his lathe and ream the chamber for proper head space. All went well. I have parts to aquire to complete the build as well as some stock inletting for the barreled action, and to complete the stock repairs on fajen stock that Troy did, by the way the repairs look real good. Will also glass bed the action and refinish the stock.



Stock repairs by troy.

Mounted my Blue C-More Railway with 12 MOA dot to my 4 inch 617 so that it would be more like my 6 inch. I also drilled out the grips so that I can adjust the strain screw without having to take them off. Now I can adjust the tension1/4 turn at a time until I get the ultimate trigger weight.

Right now it's set at 56 ounces of hammer fall and just about 8.5 pounds doable action. It pairs quite well with it's partner.

I tinkered with Cherry Red case hardening powder for the first time. The guinea pig tool was a tip-modified Brownells screwdriver for the ejector of Winchester 1903 .22 Automatic I have restored. Easy to use, powder is messy though. I then trialed the hardness with Tsubosan Rockwell hardness test file set, new bench gadgets. The 65 HRC could lightly sratch the tip, the #60 could not, so 60+ Rockwell after treatment.

Spent the last couple of nights inletting the barreled action into my fajen stock, have made a couple mistakes but it happens. There is still a long way to go before it's ready, but it does basically fit in now, took sandpaper to the barrel channel first because this barrel has a longer chamber area than its original barrel, still have contact at forend that needs opening up some.

Action still needs some work as it Rick's a little, but otherwise I'm pretty happy with the fit, it will be opened up further for bedding, which I've never done on an action.

troy fairweather said:

You may not have to remove much more, you can put a bottom metal in the bottom this works like pillars in a way. The front action screw will be metal to metal so this will set the correct spacing you need to bed it. The rear you have to trim the bottom of that brass tube I put in, just to where it matches up with the wood. The rear you tighten so the screw head just comes flush with the threaded tang. Make sure everything functions then it can be bedded.

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Have to open up the repair where the bolt handle closes and relieve the tang wood so bolt will open and close too I think I'll tackle those tomorrow after work

In-letting stocks is a tedious task finding just the right place to remove material, re-fit, re-mark, re-peat.......

Removing the Benelli M4 Bolt Handle Detent Spring Retaining Pin.

The key to making the task simple is to de-tension the spring from acting on the pin, very much like for the M4 bolt extractor roll pin removal (and Browning Hi-Power trigger pin). The second item is to have a tool to compress the spring away from the pin.

I fabricated a fork tool from 1/8” hex wrench, after observing my M4 trigger safety spring tool would fit in the hole and compress the detent spring; the problem was that tool was too long to fit in vise for compression of the spring. The hex wrench was slotted with a Dremel to 0.067”, shortened to fit a polymer tool handle. The tool can then be fitted in the vise to compress the spring freeing up your hands to remove the pin. I plan on milling a proper professional appearing tool in the near future.

The pin is removed inside-outward, once de-tensioned a simple small tool such as jewels screwdriver or 1/16” hex wrench can be lightly tapped with a light hammer to begin moving the pin which doesn’t take much force. A right angle pick with slight pressure will complete the pin removal and the pick captures the spring so it doesn’t fly about. Cover the spring hole, remove the pick and extract the detent and its spring.

Installation is the reverse. Compress the spring, insert right angle pick, use small pin holding punch to tap the pin in, displacing the pick. Make sure the inside of the pin does not impinge on bolt raceway.

When the spring is de-tensioned there is no need for dealing with breaking small diameter punches or rocketing springs.

A few photos of the tasking.

..............

Been having lots of problems with hammer fall. I've adjusted the sear spring a number of times and figured it's time for a new sear. I chose an EGW Long Sear so the hammer/sear engagement will be for secure. Hopefully this will work out on my trip to the range Friday.

I also cut the forcing cone of my 617 revolver. Just touched it up really. Had some spitting last week and I want to prevent my friend getting hit since we share a bench.

Both tune-ups worked. Today I fired 200 rounds from my 617 with no spitting and fired 100 rounds from the Walther and it ran 100%. Glad this worked well. The Gold Cup is a blast to shoot and I'm liking it again.

That polymer tool shown above was a Flintstone appearing workhorse but I finally got around to making a more refined tool today worthy for the tool box and this forum. Used a shortened #28 drill bit shank slotted with 1/16" square end mill to press fit into a 3/8" drill rod tool shaft cut to length, ends radiused for aesthetics on the slotted end and to be functional fitting into vise jaw hex fastener to stabilize the tool to prevent it sliding down the vise jaw face.

............ of course, all tools should be labeled.

Made a barrel vise out of some scrap mystery steel from the pick n pull junkyard, two old head bolts from the 300 inline 6 in my bronco, and some oak.

Bolts are 3/8" with a 7/16-14 thread. I made up 3 sets of vise blocks to drill for different barrel sizes.

a5werkes said:

In-letting stocks is a tedious task finding just the right place to remove material, re-fit, re-mark, re-peat.......

Click to expand...

The stock is coming along as you say a little at a time.

I received the bolt stop from numrich and installed it, but it wouldn't allow my bolt to completely open. It was hanging up on thr extractor collar. I tried it on my 6.5 and the same thing happened. After looking it over good there was a burr n it's leading edge, figured that was the issue, but verified it with AL, we sanded down the burr and it functions as it should. We also replaced the ejector ony 6.5 because it was too short, a small ring ejector had been installed on it and it wouldn't protrude through the bolts ejector slot, essentially making it a single shot.due to the fired case still being stuck under the extractor.

Moving along on a compensator for a Steyr
M9-A2 MF

My trigger guard, guard screws and ejector arrived today.

The trigger opening was too short for ny trigger, opened the slot so the trigger has full travel.

This one isn't lock screw type.

troy fairweather said:

Did it come with the locking screws,

Click to expand...

It’s slowly getting lighter

Made the mistake of thinking I could get the trigger a little lighter even though the gun is now working 100%. I put a new sear spring in to test. Started getting hammer fall again but the trigger pull was 3 pounds.

Got home and put the first sear spring back in. I bent the first prong, sear leaf and got it back to working 100% with the trigger set at 5 pounds. I'll try bending the other spring to increase the center leaf and lighted the sear so that it will give more pressure to the disconnector.

I always make adjustments one at a time and keep the working part along then play with a spare.

You need to keep the disconnector, (center leaf) around 1 lb. Use a trigger gauge to adj the spring pressure with the gun disassembled. Then adj the sear spring load. All of my 1911's, I run my trigger pull in the 3.5 lb range. My carry gun is at 4.5 lbs.

Brownell's have a article on how to setup and adj a 2 lb trigger on their web site.

Recently I had 2 Pietta 1860 model revolvers come across the bench with the wedge slots in the arbor cut too small. The wedge is what holds the frame and barrel assemblies together and it needs to be seated firmly. There should be about an 1\8 inch minimum of free play between the wedge and the slots in both pieces. If not the barrel is never properly secured to the frame and accuracy is dismal. It took about 15 minutes to open up the slot and get everything tightened up and seating properly. Both pistols were tuned and sent back to their owners who reported that they had become very accurate shooters. It really helps when the barrel isn't flopping around on every shot.