Pocket carry in rear pocket or inside coat pocket, depending. Carry a M&P Bodyguard 380 in a desantis nemesis holster. Looks like a wallet in my pocket and I can draw it quickly with no snag. In the car, I honestly either tuck it into the cup holders (everything is black anyway--no passerby would see it) or just leave it in my pocket.
I finally finished building a new checkering cradle, which was way overdue. It is build like a brick shithouse, made from five layers of walnut and cherry, so rigidity isn't really an issue. My grandpa cut and milled the walnut years ago and dried it in a loafing shed loft, so I left it rough- besides the fact that making the finish pretty and smooth wouldn't do me any good while checkering. Version 2.2 features a pair of heavy duty ball joints to hold the stock in place while letting it rotate around in addition to a swivel base so I can rotate the whole cradle around easily without having to touch the bench vise and physically pick up and rotate the cradle like I used to. The fore-end is held tight by a screw going through the front takedown screw hole into a 1/2" steel rod that is attached to a ball joint with a coupling nut machined to fit, and the butt seats against a padded curved wood block that is fixed to a ball joint. I offset the wood block so the stock will rotate on an axis closer to the bore line rather than being way off, but it turns out the ball joints will compensate for any variety of dimensions and setups anyways. I put it to work last night and am really happy. Having full access to the fore-end now compared to the old cradle is awesome for a fore-end pattern like this that comes up close to the ebony tip. Off to a good start!
My Grandmother passed away recently and while we were cleaning out her house we came across an old shotgun from England no-one knew she had. The makers (W Powell and Son) are still in business so i was able to get some info from them on when it was made. Its a custom build 20G hammerless ejector with 25" barrels (we think my great-grandad had it built specifically for her when she was a girl). Interestingly it was built on the 15th of July 1942... so right in the middle of WWII when Britain probably had serious restrictions on metal usage due to the war effort... so god knows who my great-grandad knew to get that one off the ground! Its in pretty decent condition as well, little bit of rust here and there but should be able to clean it up (any suggestions on best way to do that?). Ill take it to a gunsmith once the paperwork is completed to get it serviced and make sure its good to shoot. I've started the process of getting it transferred to my name. I thought we were going to have to surrender it (as you cant bequeath firearms in Australia) but turns out you can "purchase" firearms from a deceased estate so my uncle, as executor, filled in the paper work and sold it to me for the princely sum of $1. Just need to wait a month now while they process my paperwork. She also had over 2000 rounds of 20G sitting in the pool shed in an unlocked cupboard! Six unopened boxes of 250 rounds and a big plastic box of loose rounds sitting right next to all the pool chemicals... nice one Nan! All of the ammo looks to have been originally imported from England when she came out here 40 years ago and never touched again... This pool shed is literally like an oven in summer! Had to surrender all the ammo to the police, as you cant hold ammo if you dont have a license for a firearm that uses that kind of ammo, but i wasn't too keen to use them anyway as they were looking pretty corroded!
Awesome gun story! I love those. How does that work? Is it self reporting? Or, was there some way the police knew it was there? What defines holding ammo? Could you even keep one box of shells for a shotgun, but not cases of it?
Sorry about your grandma. At least it's nice to know your family had good taste- that is a gorgeous shotgun. Really nice classic English styling and high quality execution... looks like a fantastic game gun for upland birds. Minimal engraving and the wood is not outrageous so it was meant to be used. The receiver appears to have a bright coin finish, which is case hardened with the colors polished off so it's still hard on the surface and tough beneath. Not sure if you can get these in Australia but I use a special kind of metal scrubbing pad for removing rust and stuff from delicate and aged surfaces without damaging the finish or patina: http://www.big45.com/ A drop or two of oil and gentle work and it should handle the rust without harm to the rest of the metal. I can tell someone has already taken the thing apart and what you need to do that without wrecking the screw heads is a set of properly fitting hollow ground screwdriver bits. Again not sure what you can get your hands on but Brownell's sells individual Magna-Tip hollow ground bits that you can get to fit the exact screws in your shotgun. I'd carefully measure the width and length of the screw slots and get the corresponding bits on them before thinking about disassembling it for cleanup. The stock appears to be finished classic London style and probably has some kind of boiled linseed oil blend finish that took a month to apply. It looks pretty clean but if you wanted to be 100% certain you could give it a very gentle wash with some warm water (better yet add a drop of dish soap to a bowl of water for a bit of detergent action to lift dirt) on a soft cloth followed by a rinse and drying. I'd only use a paste wax to preserve the finish from here on- plain Johnson's yellow can wax here in the US works but Renaissance wax (made in England) is the absolute best and worth the added cost. It works well for preserving metal finishes too. You threw all the ammo away? Does that gun have shorter chambers and the boxed up ammo is too long or something? I can't comment on the loose shells but the stuff still boxed up appears to be modern made ammo from Eley in England and is high quality stuff. If it were still packaged and stored in a dry place like that, I'd expect all of that ammo to still be perfectly good to use in the shotgun.
It's self reporting but they ask you directly before giving you a temp permit (which allowed me to legally transport the gun to a licensed dealer who holds it until my paperwork clears) if there was any ammo found with it, and maybe stupidly I told them about the ammo. The law as it stands though is until you have a full license for that caliber/gauge you cannot legally possess any of that ammo type. The temp permit doesn't allow you to hold ammo, and While I could have lied and said there was nothing the police are allowed to randomly inspect my premise for compliance with storage conditions (i.e. inspect my gun and ammo safes and general storage area) and given any breaches in conditions allow all my rifles to be seized I decided to play it by the book... Also it looked very dodgy so I wasn't too fussed about surrendering it. I maybe should have kept back a box or two... But what might not be clear in the picture is there was a fair bit of water damage on the unopened boxes. The pool shed wasn't exactly well built and leaked fairly bad in the winter. The entire back of the cupboard they were stored in was really badly water damaged so it looks like water was dripping down the back of it for for years. @katokoch: I've got a set of brownells magnatips so I'll check if I already have a matching head for those screws. Cheers for the other cleaning tips, I'll follow up on those options and see what I have available here. Brownells ship here for a pretty reasonable price so anything I can't find locally I can get shipped in (it's actually often cheaper to buy it from brownells and pay for shipping than it is to buy locally anyway). Also I'd say your pretty on the money with your assessment of it being a good bird gun. My great grandad often held pheasant hunts on his property from what I've been told so I imagine that's what it's been built for. I'll take some better photos once I get it back and clean it up and I'll post them back here.
Well now given that information it makes complete sense regarding the ammo. Oh well, at least the gun is the much bigger priority. Depends on how it was choked but pheasants and grouse hiding in thick brush should be very afraid of it. Are the barrels still tight on face (locks up solid, no movement between the barrels and action)? Good on you for already having some quality screwdriver bits around. Since I became aware of fine double shotguns I've always wanted a 16 gauge for the woods and fields here, so what you've got is solid gold to me. I saw an ideal project gun in Oklahoma City last year- a JP Sauer crossbolt boxlock with the metal in rock-solid condition but bad stocks (ideal for me) for $600 and had to pass on it. Some day... At the moment I am repairing a somewhat similar gun, a Miroku 12 gauge side by side that the owner dropped on pavement causing the toe of the stock to crack and chip (PSA: make sure your gun cases are 100% zipped and locked shut before you go). It's nowhere near as refined as yours Archer but another straight gripped double gun built for carrying. I'm trying to convince him it'll be worthwhile for me to re-cut the checkering as I refinish the stocks but we'll see. Spoiler: internet picture
Yeah the barrels seemed rock solid on the face, no play or movement at all. Was a bit stiff when first cracking the breach and the forearm was quite difficult to get off when i broke it down the first time but thats probably to be expected given its been sitting in a safe for 30 odd years! Oh one question i did have is about ammo. Given its an older gun will modern loads and powders be OK in it? Anything i need to be wary of? Dont know much about shotguns so any info at all will be appreciated.
That is very good news regarding everything still locking up tight. I am not the person to definitively say what you should or shouldn't shoot in it, but it should be proofed for smokeless loads and is probably safe for reasonable loads- the proof marks should tell us more. If in doubt there's low pressure loads out there specifically made for use in older guns like yours, like these: RST Best Grade. I was just on the phone last week with a guy who bought a case of their 12 gauge loads for his old single-shot I re-stocked and he is very happy with them. Nothing more proper for a classic double gun than paper shells too, just sayin'.
Wasnt sure where to put this, as we dont have a knife forum (i think). Another interesting find from my Nan's house, a Fairbairn-Sykes Fighting Knife from WWII. This will probably horrify any knife enthusiasts or WWII collectors but she used this as a gardening trowel for the past 30 odd years! No-ones quite sure where she got it from, i think they were only issued to Commandos or Airborne units, and my grandad was just regular infantry. I distinctly remember her telling me when i was younger it was a Hitler Youth Knife that Grandad took as a war trophy but that's obviously not the case It was in pretty rough shape as can be seen in the first photo, ive since cleaned it up a bit with some rust converter and the original handle color has come back mostly. Id like to sharpen it back up but the top third of the blade is very pitted and worn (you know from being used as a bloody gardening trowel) so im concerned i might do more damage than good trying to get it sharp again.
Wow... another surprise with some history behind it. I'd just wax it for the sake of preservation and secure it or display it somehow. Despite my gimp right hand (as ms. katokoch is saying it) I can still hold and push a checkering tool. Still making progress. Here's the checkering after the lines have been chased over a time or two with the fine single line cutter to form diamonds. I need to go over them at least once more to even everything out and finish them all the way to the borders and corners but applied a coat of the tinted sealer I used in the finishing process to start sealing the open wood grain and fill any pores I opened up. Good so far!
Before Christmas, I took a Henry lever action to a gunsmith I've been using. It just went in for a cleaning and replace some screws that the PO ruined by removing them with a normal screwdriver. I got it back a month ago, tried to shoot it over the weekend and it doesn't function properly. If you try to cock the gun with the barrel pointed downward, the hammer will not remain cocked. If you cock the gun with the barrel pointed higher, above parallel to the ground, it seems to work fine. And it worked before I took it. Damn it. It may not even be the gunsmith's fault. I know the previous owner is a neglectful, gun abusing bastard asshole, he's my father-in-law. I'd never buy another one from him but he always buys guns when he has money and sells them for a loss when times get tough. I give him a little more than the pawn shop will, then pay to fix them.
Damn. Fortunately it sounds like Henry is very good with warranty work, if it comes to that. Here's a the special edition 10/22 I started working over last year and finally finished. Took it to the range first and found out the thing shoots pretty damn well to start with, so it's worth our time. Over a long period of time I was able to complete it with a highly weather-resistant gloss finish. Threw away the synthetic trigger guard, buttplate, and barrel band (ain't nobody got time for that) and polished some old metal hardware I had sitting around to replace the plastic shit. Replaced the new trigger lever, hammer, magazine release, and bolt release with some older parts that fit better and polished the bolt in the receiver raceway so it is all slick and smooth. Replaced the steel bolt buffer with a soft one my buddy at High Tower Arms gave me. It came with a swivel stud that fits in the barrel band, which I like. I clear coated the new metal hardware with a lacquer after polishing (wow that trigger guard sucked) and painted whatever couldn't be polished to match (close enough, this is a cheap redo too) including the screws and swivel studs. Now this is one nice .22.
That's a damn nice looking 10/22. The owner of this rifle must be really smart and good looking. Huge wang too, I bet.
Doubtful. More likely, the gun is a way to compensate for shortcomings. He's probably an internet troll who tries to make lame jokes on some 2-bit message board.
This is solid gold... check out the comments and questions/answers: Tufforce Muzzle Brake with 4 side Picatinny rail I also love the name of this product and everything about it: Howling Raven Muzzle Brake for the Mosin Nagant 91/30 Here's something different, a little carbon fiber work I did for a friend and his old Anschutz 64 he uses for rimfire silhouette shooting. The fore-end had a couple of big pockets milled out at some point that he filled with lead bars to alter the balance of the gun, and he wanted them covered up. Saw another carbon fiber barrel channel job I'd done previously so here we are. I started by filling over the lead bars with Great Stuff foam and sanded it down to fit along the barrel channel so the carbon fiber could form a consistent channel shape and not conform to the flat bars underneath. Sanded the wood and foam down a bit to compensate for a bit of added thickness from layer of the carbon fiber to preserve the existing fit between the barreled action and stock. I usually use the barrel itself to mold the carbon fiber into a tapered barrel channel but this time I made a mold to fit the stock using a 3/4" wood dowel and Bondo. Laid 4 layers of masking tape into the barrel channel to allow precisely .015" room for the carbon fiber and epoxy between the wood and the mold, then waxed it up and poured Bondo in. After pressing the wood dowel in, the Bondo filled in the tapered areas of the barrel channel and popped out once cured. I pulled the tape out, cleaned the wood up once more, and covered everything but the barrel channel with painter's tape. Then I mixed up some epoxy and started saturating the barrel channel with it and laid a cut strip of twill carbon fiber into the barrel channel. Pressed it in place and made sure the fabric was then saturated with epoxy too. I carefully put the waxed mold in place over the carbon fiber and clamped it just enough to get uniform compression. The next day I pulled the mold out, trimmed excess carbon fiber along the edges, and sanded it a bit to flatten it out. After a couple coats of finish to clean up the epoxy along the top of the channel, there you are. Minimal cost in terms of materials when you have all the scrap epoxy and carbon fiber you'd ever need like I do and the tools on hand too. However there was a lot of prep work involved to do it right so when I ship the stock back, it'll fit just like it did before.
Fun fact that no one will care about but me: I've spent most of my life living within a mile or so of Picatinny Arsenal. "The rail is named after the Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, USA. The Arsenal's role with the rail was to test/evaluate it and to create a military standard for it." Rattling windows and doors from test explosions were a common occurrence, and we still get helicopters flying overhead to and from the Arsenal. And one time this happened: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/artillery-shell-strikes-house-kills-cat/
Almost done with the 40X. Just down to touching up little things that seem to only appear in the final stages of the finish and polishing the hardware, fitting and timing the screws, etc. Spoiler I don't wanna toot my own horn too much but I'm pretty damn proud of this thing now. Part of me is still surprised it was just a big wood block a year ago and I actually did this work. If I had $5K to spend on a bolt action .22 this is exactly what I'd want and I'll miss having it around, but at the same time I'm very grateful to have been a part of making it regardless. I think this project was a turning point for me. We'll see.