doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com A good topic for discussion.

As you see there is no one answer to your question. We all have our reasons to do restoration or how much is appropriate.

I would like to find rifles that need nothing done to them but that is not always the case for me. After years of looking I know that fixing a problem or two might be my only chance to get a rifle by that maker.

About thirty years ago I bought a Eric Johnson Ardmore, OK 1903 and when I got it I did not care for the amount of "Patina" on it and sent it back. I think I have sent back no more then three rifles in my life. After many years and not finding another I bought the same rifle again. I still don't know of another.

The most common problem I am faced with is the mounting of a modern scope on the top of the rifle which normally means a bent bolt. When this is done the stock is then cut out for the bent bolt. Like all restorations if this is done wrong it will look worse than if I had just left it alone. There are some bad restorations out there done by folks who should know better.

Because I not only collect but report on the maker I do not want a rifle with a refinished stock. Now folks do this all the time and the ONLY way I know to stop this is to invoke what the loss in money will be. Kind of like watching the Antique Roadshow when one of Kenos will say "Your high-boy is worth $100,000.....if you had not refinished it it would be worth $500,000".

This does not stop everyone, but I try. A while back a gunmaker got a hold of me because he had to buy a John Dubiel rifle to stop a custom from ruining it.

I'm having a rifle worked on now that was made by B.J. Toothman. I would have never bought it with the problems it has but I don't know where I would find another.

Rifles by makers who made just a few or historical rifles are worth a little more time, money and effort to restore and preserve them.

Townsend Whelen's Wundhammer Springfield is in my collection, it has a cracked stock and the checkering is about worn smooth. It's one that I'll leave it as I found it.

We all have to decide what is right for ourselves, some folks don't care, others do. One man that does is getting on a plane with his rifle in the morning down in Texas and flying north to interview a man who he would like to restore his early G&H. I wish them both luck.

Bill: Please check your PM's

P.S. EXCUSE THE SALUTATIONS ERROR

Thanks Jerry

I'll throw in a couple cents of my own.

As to fine(r) guns and not Uncle Joe's Savage 99*, Yukon prospecting or not, the gun will have some level of individual craftsmanship and therefore history in it. The car, excepting the top-end hand-built stuff, is an industrial product that came off an assembly line, built from interchangeable parts. *(OTOH, I once knew a guy who has custody of an ancestor's Civil War musket, which he'd carried when wounded at Vicksburg and brought home with him. Mass produced, but untouched and untouchable.) There is little if any comparison in the car world to the guys in the German room here telling someone who shows up with their GI granddad's war-trophy drilling who the barrel-knitters were that put them together a century ago. And then going on to telling them who the barrel-knitters were related to by blood or marriage.

I have a friend who restores expensive antique furniture. Sometimes, all it needs is a good cleaning, a disassembly, new glue (of the same type as used before - this guy boiled his own rabbit skins to make glue), reassembly, a skim of fresh finish and a good waxing. And that's all he'll do for those pieces. Maybe a new piece of wood where the upholstery nails had, over many re-coverings, had torn the substrate to pieces. Or an appropriate reinforcement. OTOH, I've seen people bring in an old 3 drawer chest in pieces, literally in plastic shopping bags. A couple months later, it left looking as new as it did 200 years ago when it went into a horse-drawn wagon from its maker's shop. About that one, we joked that he was causing a family feud.

Guns have a lot more in common with that furniture than they do with a car.

I know that same fella -- or a few others like him in the trade. One in particular is an iconoclast and talent First Class. Was privileged to sit in classes taught by him, in Rare Academia. He knows more ways to expose Silly Correctness and Overweening Bureaucrats, while doing superb and informed work than any scholar/artist I ever met face to face.

As to "found' condition, I grew up next door to an old farmer in a small town who had bought 'those old relic guns' whenever they turned up. He had them hanging horizontally from the garage rafters in rows. The walls were covered with pistols, local Indian artifacts [NW Ohio}, and all manner of gunny related goods. They were all as found, and my mind's eye still sees them well.

After his death I was there for the auction, which coincided with the sharp rise in interest for such guns. It's not too likely any of them retained their appearance, after purchase. One of the few books about Long Rifles at that time, had new owners of such finds scrubbing them down with a good lye solution, in order to begin the 'restoration' they obviously needed. By contrast, a local gunsmith, who had an advanced appreciation for such goods, told me the ones that had been stored in dry spaces very often were heavily greased, often with animal fat. He came to believe that in their using days, such firearms were KEPT pretty greasy as a means of preserving an expensive and necessary object.

However, on assorted farms in the area, as a youth, we found guns in outhouses, pumphouses, barn rafters, tractor sheds, and about everywhere else an active boy could get into. Most of these were cartridge guns, and I know now, of the mail-order catalog genre. They had been left where they were last used, or broke, or leaned away -- and were in pretty bad shape. I 'restored' a few, but most were just Industrial Age Relics

Interesting contrast in preservation, from when a gun was defense and larder, to when it became a mere obsolete agricultural implement.

Thanks for the topic. Very Interesting.

pP

Rifle arrived and it is simply beautiful! Correct PRE-WAR cloverleaf tang & stock, all normal with the exception of, no steel buttplate. L.O.P. 13.5 on the nose. Everything checks out original for Jan. 1940 serial# period. I let an older custom gunmaker look at it and he feels it was a special order for another type of buttplate and that buttplate was probably broken and this, was an older replacement buttplate. He stated this was done [special order] when people wanted to use another style buttplate or pad and didn't want to cut the stock, because of the widow's peak inletting. The only wear on the entire gun is a small amount on the sharp edges of the G&H side mount, otherwise 98-99%. All in all I am very happy with it!!! Jerry

Not to be provocative here but I have learned this lesson the hard way. The term "special order" needs to verified to be used with Winchesters. One needs to be very wary of this description because when it is legitimate you will always pay a premium for it. If it is indeed special order odds are it will letter. Anything "special order" on a Winchester is worth lettering. The other is length of pull. The length of pull was very consistent gun to gun. If one is a 1/4" short it has been cut. Again not trying to rain on anyones parade just passing along from experience. Personally, short of the pre-war customs I love, the low comb pre-64 & Lyman Alaskan in G&H mount or Redfield Jr. is the "Riflemans Rifle". Fall is coming, hope all is well with everyone.

I am new to this forum posting business. So, if I "hijacked' this thread above I apologize.

The whole concept of restoration is as was intended at the begining of this thread a subject unto itself. Most of this has been covered. If you can do the work yourself and wish too well good for you. In my case I could have but I didn't believe I would end up with the same result. I have owned a rifle for some time that has sat untouched waiting its turn. To me at least it is one of the more interesting projects I have owned. It's a very early sporter. Some of the questions are: who made it in the beginning, how many itterations of modifications are there, what state should it be brought back to, who should be recognised historically, and who should execute the work. Well,I have more information, I have a plan, I have an artist/riflemaker, It is underway. When it gets finished we can play before and after. I hope we can all learn something and have fun with this. I want to start something here: Restoration Rule #1. Do not get in a hurry.
Thanks all, Gary Duffey

As I commented several posts back, it doesn't matter to me why the rifle doesn't have a steel buttplate or if it was "special order". The L.O.P. is spot on 13.5 and shows no signs [that I can tell] of having been cut. What I was looking for, was a mint pre-war Model 70 with G&H MOUNT AND ALASKAN SCOPE, that I could hunt and not worry about ruining a major investment. It is obviously not an original gun, but I believe it is an example of one, that has been restored beautifully! At $1275 I haven't seen anything near this quality in many years, value wise and it is in .270 WCF. So far as a letter, that would be "taking coal to Newcastle" as special order or not, it still isn't original an collector quality, so a $60 letter would not make the rifle more valuable unless I planned on selling it, which I don't. Maybe when I request a letter on My Model 21.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/automo...and-all.html?hp

I still like them cleaned up a little!