First post, and gun restoration questions.

[LY]

Hello everyone, my name is Lance. I usually shoot shotguns for recreation, but I am just getting into rifles. I recently ordered a new Marlin Model 60. At a local gun store I also saw a used Model 60. I am interested in restoring the rifle as a little project. Although the appearance of the rifle looks neglected, it seems to be mechanically sound. Here are my questions/concerns about this rifle.

The barrel is rusty and the stock needs refinishing. I plan on doing most of the work myself.

1) How much is this rifle currently worth?

2) About how much will it cost me to restore this rifle?

3) How much would the rifle be worth once it is restored?

4) What is the best process for removing rust from the rifle?

If I think of additional questions I will be sure to post them.

 

[mjsdwash]

with rebluing, this would be around 400$ to bring back. But you could sand and stain the stock, vinegar soak the metal parts, and parkerize it for around 100$ if you were to buy all of the equipment to make it look good. The sandpapers, wood stain, lacquer, vinegar, and parkerizing acid would be around 25-30$. Or theres cold blue, if you like that. A marlin 60 in excellent used condition is worth about 100$ in my area. Ive done the parkerizing and restain to some beater guns, and the results are always good. Its also an easy process, with tutorials over the internet. You can also get checkering tools from a few sources and really pretty the stock up if you wanna make it a keeper. I looked into this because a friend left his 60 in a pool of water for a few months.

 

[Chawbaccer]

The gun you describe is worth about fifty bucks and would be worth about fifty bucks after you restore it. I think the gun new is around 140 at Walmart. There is a lot of the model
60's out there, many older in mint shape, so it wouldn't make much sense in spending the money to restore it.

 

[rcmodel]

While agree it doesn't make economic sense to spend much money restoring it, there are still some valuable lessons for you to learn if you can buy it cheap enough for a project gun.

Rust is pretty simple. Heres how I did it yesterday.
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=633232

Refinishing the stock can be as simple or hard as you want to make it.

But hand sanding the old finish off and applying a couple coats of semi-gloss finish Deft or Min-wax will make it look nice again.

rc

 

[LY]

Refinishing the stock will be the easy part for me, we have lots of woodworking equipment and supplies. Refinishing the metal is my concern. I'm most interested in parkerizing and cold bluing, but I haven't ever done either of these processes.

 

[Liberty1776]

to get set up for parkerizing will cost you a bunch, compared to a bottle of Oxpho-blue from Brownells. Easy to use and will look good with just a little effort. Their instructions they furnish work well.

 

[mjsdwash]

the set up for parkerizing is a stainless steel washtank from a kitchen supply store, a digital thermometer, and some kind of tong. you can heat on a kitchen stove. 173 degrees, less than boiling water. The chemicals are around 6 dollars a quart, and one quart will do several rifles. You mix with distilled water. if the temp gets to low, you turn up the heat, if it gets too high you add water. Its very simple, and if you read the warnings, much safer than any cold blue. my set up cost was around fifety dollars.

 

[Chris-bob]

the set up for parkerizing is a stainless steel washtank from a kitchen supply store, a digital thermometer, and some kind of tong. you can heat on a kitchen stove. 173 degrees, less than boiling water. The chemicals are around 6 dollars a quart, and one quart will do several rifles. You mix with distilled water. if the temp gets to low, you turn up the heat, if it gets too high you add water. Its very simple, and if you read the warnings, much safer than any cold blue. my set up cost was around fifety dollars.

Do you have any more details on this?