"Restoring" an 1891 Argentine

G

GoodSouthernBoy

Inactive
I have an 1891 Argentine (Long Version - Not Carbine) that has a great action, an excellent bore, and shoots well. Unfortunately, it has the all-to-common hacked stock fore-end. Not sure why anyone would have ever wanted to hack away at such a beautiful gun. But, I got a deal on the gun, so I'm not complaining.

There aren't any full length Argentine stocks available (unless, anybody knows of any place), and I would like to put this baby back into something resembling it's original configuration.

What about the possibility of using the fore-end off of a Turkish Mauser 38 Stock and joining the two underneath the barrel band? Is that a workable idea? I have both rifles, and Turk 38 stocks are fairly easy (and cheap) to come by. The barrel bands are in about the same spot, and the fore-ends are virtually identical.

I am not a woodworker, nor a gunsmith, by any stretch of the imagination - how hard would something like that be? What would you use to connect the separate pieces together? I don't plan on shooting the rifle much, but I would like any "restoration" to hold up under at least an occasional firing.

There seems to be a relatively high demand for full-length Argentine stocks - I'm amazed an enterprising businessman hasn't started making reproductions.
 
You're looking at a very tricky piece of woodworking. Matching grain and color will be difficult, even if you're hiding the joint beneath the barrel band. You also need to be very good with a miter saw to get the two pieces to line up, it's not like you're cutting a 2x4 where the angle always comes out perfect, you have two pieces of shaped wood that you're tying to align. You probably want to use 1/8th dowels to connect the pieces, so you need a jig to drill the holes.
None of this is impossible if you have the experience and the tools (like a drill press that allows you to feed from below through the plate, and a laser guided miter saw), but I'd seriously wonder if the effort will be matched by the looks of the final piece.
 
I've got one of those in the same sort of condition. I, too, gave some thought to a restoration, but because it seems to be next to impossible to locate an original stock, I've decided to go the other way and replace the bubba'd military stock with a nice sporting stock and turn the rifle into what the original "builder" had aimed for - a good sporting rifle.

Unfortunately, I have about a gazillion projects ahead of this one, so it's entirely possible that it won't be done until sometime in 2020.
 
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