Rebuilding an Old Army Rifle

C

Corey

New member
Hello out there,

I was wondering how hard it will to rebuild 6.5 X 55 Swed. To give a little history, this is one of the first rifles that I shot, and it is a nice flat shooter. I talked to the person that bought it from my father and he said he would sell it back to me, but it has been sitting in a closet and has a pretty advanced case of surface rust going on. I want to have it cleaned up and reblued so I was wondering how hard a task it would be to do. Also, I planned to take the stock off of it when I clean it up and I was considering putting a modern synthetic stock on it to fit my bipod. I was wondering where I could get hold of a stock for it, and other minor parts if necessary
 
Corey, sounds like you the makings of a great winter project. If the surface rust is just minor you can polish with different grades of emery cloth until you get it "in the white" and as shiny as you want. The farther you go with the polishing (the higher grades you go to) will determine how glossy the final blue will be. 400grit is about standard for rebluing most guns. Start with a coarser grade, around 150 or so and work up. Use a shoe shine motion on all the round areas and back the cloth by wrapping around a file for the flats. If you have pitting you can draw file the pits out before you polish. It's not hard but it will be time consuming. Brownells will have a stock for it as well as anything else you need for this project. I recommend their Oxpho-Blue for the complete bluing job, but if you can wangle a tank long enough to accomodate the barreled action the Pilkinton's Rust blue is hard to beat and easy to use. George
 
I agree with everything that George has to say except for the bluing part. And only because bluing truely is an art in itself, and it's real easy to screw up a bluing job (I know!).

Back down east in North Carolina, there is an outfit near New Bern that does small jobs and for a low output firm, they don't do bad work. I say this only because if the job isn't up to your expectations, then you can always bring it back until they get it right. It doesn't matter where you're from either. Most 'smiths that I know don't do it for the profit so much as for the love of it, and you're likely to love what they do for you.

Reading the Brownell's catalog has shown me that if you don't really have the experience, it's better to leave a one time job up to someone who DOES have the experience. Now all I have to do is find a 'smith that does bluing in the Yuma, AZ area...

Unkel Gilbey

[This message has been edited by Unkel Gilbey (edited December 02, 1999).]

[This message has been edited by Unkel Gilbey (edited December 02, 1999).]
 
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