doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Cleaning up an older Uggie

I bought an older Uggie as a gift for my brother: http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=196727981







I'd like to clean it up a bit but I'd also like to have it ready to give him at Thanksgiving, so a complete refinish isn't really an option.

Beyond a new recoil pad, what sort of small fixes would you guys do to clean this old gun up?

Right now I'm thinking WD40 and steel wool on the metal.

How about the wood? Do you think it's just dirty and grimy, or is there actually old gun oil in there? Any tips or techniques for making it look like it spent the last twenty years in a gun cabinet instead of behind the seat of a farm truck?

Here's what I'd do to get it more presentable quickly:
Buy a product call finish restorer, which is available at any big box hardware store, in walnut and go over the wood with 4/0 steel wool soaked in it. Use a brush for the checkering.
Get a can of good quality paste wax* and some old towels and use this to clean the metal. It will take you multiple iterations but the wax will clean and polish the metal without removing the original finish as steel wool can possibly do since the wax isn't abrasive.
*As an alternative you can use Flitz polish and work carefully as this product is somewhat abrasive. However; It does a good job of pulling any rust out of the blueing.
After cleaning the wood re-coat it and rub it out with Tru-Oil or a similiar product.
This should improve the looks of your Uggie without and major refinishing.
Jim

Re-point the checkering, If you cant do it yourself find someone locally to do it for you its not hard. The lines are not wore clear down so they just need to chase the old ones.

If there are any buggered screws have them fixed or fix them yourslef, its a pretty easy technique.

That is actually old gun oil in the wood. And, heres a tip-it is going to cause problems, big ones, if the gun is put to use.
Give your brother the gun at Thanksgiving. Tell him he can use it just a bit before you have some work done to it. After he shoots it a few times, have a pro leach the oil out of the head of the stock, strip, refinish it and rechecker it at the same time.If Bro needs a bend in the stock, this would be the time to do it. A good one for this work would be Cole Haugh, he imported those guns at one time. His prices for this work are super.
The metal would look fabulous with a rub down with 0000 steel wool soaked with Kroil. Just a gentle wiping motion, don't get too ambitious or you will need someone to polish and blue it. You can get both at Brownell's, or pony up for the bronze wool they sell, but, I haven't discovered a big difference in results with the procedure I described.
My brother will be taking the Stevens BSE 12 gauge I bought for him 30 seasons ago out for the MN. deer opener this Saturday. He used to shoot on my trap shooting/beer drinking leaque with the same gun, but, a shoulder injury about ten years past put him into the team mangers position, in charge of the beer drinking aspect of the team. The gun has eaten thousands of full house loaded slugs over the years with nary a glitch, and performs like an actual purpose built slug gun for reasons nobody can adequately explain.
Good luck. You are a pretty decent brother. If I was single, I'd ask if you had any sisters.

Best,
Ted

If there are any Marine Supply places around you, they generally have bronze wool cheap.

Personally, I wouldn't see any problem with him using it for the hunting season using 1 oz. loads from www.rstshells.com, which 12s pattern beautifully.
Then pull the stock and forend wood, (if you don't know how, PM me and I will tell you) get a pan big enough that the stock will fit in, buy a gallon of acetone, put in pan,cover pan and let the wood soak for a couple of days or more until the dark spots of oil are gone or almost. It helps between soakings to put the wood on a sunny window pane to help draw the oil toward the surface. It's sometimes hard to get it all out. While soaking, turn the wood over from time to time.
When removing the wood have a rag ready to wipe it off quickly or you will get 'flash' spots from the quick drying acetone. let dry for a couple days; then some like to give the wood a wet wipe with rubbing alcohol before finishing; let dry couple more days and then I usually finish the wood with Truoil. You can do a search on this forum for finishing techniques. Look for Mike Campbells posts; he's very good.
The gun looks like it has the same receiver used on the Ugartechea Falcon. It may have 3" chambers like the Falcon marked 12/76; but I wouldn't shoot 3"; no need and harder on the gun.

One more suggestion: You're dealing with a $3-400 gun here. Any professional refinish will likely cost more than the gun is worth, regardless of what you paid for it. As Ted suggest, let him shoot it for a while. He may love it or he may not shoot it well, at all. Going into debt, trying to make a silk ear out of a sow's purse, might not be a good idea, right away.

Hmm... that's what I was afraid of. If it's really bad, I have a seven day, no questions return offer on the gun so I can always send it back.

So maybe I should ask: based on the pictures do you guys think this gun is worth the $300 I paid for it?

Yeah, that's the rub. Perhaps this will have to by a winter project for me. I don't have any experience working on guns, but I suppose the stakes are pretty low since I haven't sunk much into this.

Thanks for the tip. Is this the sort of thing I should be removing the wood to do, or can I safely do it with the gun assembled?