Not to put too finer point on things the old enemy age is really rushing to catch me up now and over the last eighteen months my right elbow and shoulder decided enough was enough, the elbow decided to suffer Cubital tunnel problem and my pinched shoulder joint joined the elbow in sympathy. Being right handed this has put a total stop to all my shooting activities, it is now some months after the operations to correct things so my thoughts turned to picking up a gun again. So off to my local gun club with a selection of guns to see if the elbow and shoulder are getting back to their usual selves. They do say in every life a little rain must fall, well it was my turn for the thunder storm and what a storm it was! Even with much reduced loads I was suddenly woken up to the fact that my guns of preference side by sides where all far to light and not fitted with recoil pads and until this visit to the club the absence of a recoil pad on a gun was never a problem. Unpalatable though it may be a heavier gun with a recoil pad was needed to reduce felt recoil, I do have a heavy under and over weighing some seven and half pounds, which I bought in a moment of weakness from a shooting partner of mine the late Blaster Bates I am sure some of the Brit readers of this forum will have listened to him at one time or another though I have no idea of this guns age. The gun has been used by my sons over the years well the old mans side by sides no matter who the makers are have very little street credibility next to an under and over in their eyes, so it was their choice for rough shooting and the occasional clay breaking sessions. Heavily used before I purchased it and regularly used in the intervening years and now found to be lacking in the external look after me department so now in need of some t.l.c.
The gun in question is a vintage 12 bore Baikal Model IJ I2 proudly proclaiming made in the now defunct USSR with 2 inch chambers with Birmingham proof marks 28 inch un ventilated top rib barrels also in its favour it closes up like a well fitting bank vault door, perfect bores choking in each barrel with double triggers like all of my other guns though it is non-ejector. Well a lot of clubs these days dont want you ejecting cases to the four winds they want them in the receptacle next to the stand.
My I intentions are to smarten it up a little though bearing in mind it is as nearly valueless as a gun can get in view of its age lacking ejectors and of course its maker.
The must do things on the gun are.
Repair the crack in the stock adjacent to the to the slide safety which does go through the stocks head from top to bottom although it has been there since I acquired the gun. The cracks orientation is very often found in a stocks head after the guns cast has been altered with rather a lot of applied force.
Replace the hard but plate with a 20mm rubber recoil pad which will extend the length of pull from 14 inches.to a little over 15 inches.
Reshape the wood each side of the stocks head to improve the guns line though this is purely a matter of my personal taste.
Improve the metal to wood fit where possible.
It goes without saying refinish the wood because the old finish is oxidised to the point the woods figuring is almost invisible also remove those yellowed white plastic spacers between the wood and butt plate and the wood and pistol grip cap they are just not me! Along the same lines I intend to fit the ubiquitous silver oval in the stock even though the makers thought such a low value gun did not warrant one. Contrary to all the rumours about old railway sleepers the wood used on this Baikal is Manchurian Walnut (Juglans Mandshurica) its not rich dark and beautiful though sound enough for a gun stock also I do want to see what traditional Red Oil will do for this rather hard nondescript walnuts looks.
Retouch the bluing I really do not want to do a complete gun re-blue so I will see how much they have improved cold bluing formulas though my thoughts may change when it comes to actually doing it.
So I will be starting the work tomorrow and will let you all know how it progresses.
