The 10/22 Spencer Carbine Project

[Pahoo]

Minor tip

Bandit,
Just a tip, if you have any brass hardware that you want to give a little age to,
burnish the surface with the 000-steelwool and apply some spot-bluing. then make sure you was with mineral spirits to remove any residue. ....

Be Safe !!!

 

[dakota.potts]

Looking to be a very cool project. I will be following.

Just a tip, Imgur does make it very easy to embed images directly into the forum post rather than posting separate links to each one.

 

[smee78]

That is a great project, thanks for walking us through your progress.

 

[TINCANBANDIT]

Thanks guys, I had thought about making the rifle look aged, but that involves much more than just the brass screws....how would I age a powder coated aluminum receiver to look like old steel?

I decided to make it look like a new 1870's carbine...

another update

Holes drilled and screws mounted

 

[TINCANBANDIT]

My blog will be catching up with these posts

http://tincanbandit.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-ruger-spencer-carbine-part-1.html

The sling mount was pretty ugly, so I cleaned it up a bit before bluing





I also had to slim down the front sling to fit the barrel band

You can see it here compared to the Uncle Mikes swivel mount

 

[rightside]

Very nice work! Kudos to you. Just my personal take, but I would loose the brass plated screws. The originals were blue. That shiny brass looks cheap and cheesy. Again , one man's opinion.

 

[Mobuck]

My only comment is: thankfully, 10-22 wood stocks are cheap and readily available.

 

[Mikef262]

Mobuck, not sure why that would be your only comment. The OP seems to be doing an outstanding job with the project, and I personally have been following it since he started it. From what's been displayed so far he's been taking it step by step and is doing so carefully. I believe the pictures he posted proves that. However I can see how the stocks being cheap would be nice should something go wrong if that was what you were implying.

 

[TINCANBANDIT]

I could have gone either way with the screws, but if you remember in the 1870s, many guns were still muzzle loaders which did use brass components...

 

[TINCANBANDIT]

I was warned by some wood workers in the know, not to try and stain the stock with typical wood stain. I was instructed to use a dye. I had found a guy on line who made a replacement birch M1 Carbine stock look like a military issue walnut one, so I followed his lead.
I used some Fiebings dark brown leather dye and a cotton swab

I followed with some brown shoe polish

here is what it looks like in the natural light, there are some dark areas, but I think it looks pretty authentic

here I laid it over the top of an unmodified factory stock so you can see what changed

 

[smee78]

I like that dye trick, looks like a good turn out thus far. Keep up the good work.

 

[TINCANBANDIT]

Coming down to the end.

I installed the extended magazine release and performed an action job.

The rear leaf sight I bought would not fit, so I installed this Williams peep sight. While the picatinney rail doesn't look period correct, the peep sight does.

Next I installed the barrelled action into the stock and checked the fit of the barrel band.

As I expected it would not fit as the new location is farther up the barrel where it is thicker. I needed to remove some material with a file

Now it fits

I then cleaned up the barrel band to prepare it for satin black paint

 

[TINCANBANDIT]

here is the latest blog post (which is lagging behind the progress here)

http://tincanbandit.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-ruger-spencer-carbine-part-2.html

 

[4V50 Gary]

I'm enjoying this thread. I did something similar, but made a half round barrel, brass trigger guard (forge and silver soldered), scratch built brass patchbox with release mechanism, modified 1803 buttplate and relief carving behind the cheekpiece. Here's an old photo before the barrel was blued.

In hindsight, I should have soldered a rib beneath the barrel and added pipes and a ram rod to make mine look some more like an 1803 Harper Ferry's Rifle.

 

[TINCANBANDIT]

Nice Job!

Here mine, "done" for now, I will be adding a dove tail filler blank and swapping the peep site for the version without the picatinney rail.

I'll have more pictures on my blog soon

 

[4V50 Gary]

Good work. About the only thing I would add would be the Spencer floor plate with the magazine tube. It would be good for a cigar?

 

[TINCANBANDIT]

The gun is finally done, I replaced the peep sight and installed a filler blank in the dove tail


more pictures can be found at my blog

http://tincanbandit.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-ruger-spencer-carbine-part-3.html

On to the next project!