Pandemic project: The rifle that made me stop shooting.

[Schlegel]

So my dad gave me this department store labeled Marlin (Glenfield 75) when I was 10. I couldn't run it, could barely pull the bolt back, it jammed every shot, and got frustrated and quit shooting for 25 years. (Note... get kids a bolt action starter rifle)

I'm home half the week with kids so getting some projects done and decided to revisit the old rifle. It sat in my parent's basement about 30 years, the outside rusted, bolt a little rusty but not bad, bore looked good. Action full of crud.

I took it about all apart, cleaned it, put a new coat of black on the receiver, rust blued the barrel, nitre blued the barrel band and mag tube end cap (2nd time I've done nitre blueing and getting better at it.) Wish I'd had a buffing wheel to get into the crevices better, but pretty pleased considering. The barrel tapped back in easily. Gave the stock a spray of polyurethane for some outdoor water resistance.

Slicked up the flat contact surfaces in the action, and now it's smooth and loads every time you release the bolt. I'm actually looking forward to sighting it in. It looks better than it did when new.

Any other long put off projects getting done out there?

 

[MedWheeler]

No projects going on here, but I do have one of those rifles. Bought it back around 2014 from a LGS. It predates the serial-number requirement, so I don't know exactly how old it is. It's very clean and appears solid, but I've actually never gotten around to shooting it.

The Glenfield 75 was a "cheaper" department-store version of the Marlin 99M1, which was itself a tribute to the M1 Carbine series. Both came with sling swivel loops and a shortened magazine tube; the 99M1 added an over-top wood handguard, gold trigger, a "GI"-type rear sight, and walnut wood (as opposed to the Glenfield's birch furniture.) After acquiring the Glenfield, I did end up with two of the 99M1 models, one of which also pre-dates the serial-number requirement. I consider all three to be neat collectibles.

You have a nice rifle there. I hope you get to enjoy it soon.

 

[chicharrones]

I like those short mag tube Marlin .22s. I have no firearms related projects I've been working on, but it's nice to see you revive that Marlin/Glenfield carbine, Schlegel.

 

[Sniper66]

Good on ya, brother! I don't have any gun refurbs going on, but am catching up on reloading tasks like tumbling, resizing, decapping and trimming brass. I'm taking the time to trim the outer edge of crimped .223 primer holes with a counter-sink bit. A tad tedious, but well worth it. Am also doing the same with .243 brass and building loads for long distance shooting. Ordered some ELD-X bullets with the goal of killing a prairie dog at 500 yds...just because. Shopping on-line for new guns and trying not to break the bank.

 

[1KPerDay]

Looks great!

 

[NIGHTLORD40K]

Nice work!

Be warned, though, sooner or later those things need to have the 2-peice feed ramp replaced and it is a bit of a chore and not cheap......

Ive got a 99 Savage takedown project which keeps getting pushed back. I have all the parts, just no time. My situation has been very busy during the pandemic, for which Im thankful- but I wouldn't mind some time off to work on my guns!

 

[Dave DeLaurant]

Not a rifle, but I finally debugged a problem with the trigger on my P08 Luger parts gun. This one started life as an artillery Lange Pistol and some idiot about three owners back read something a gunmag and took a hacksaw and coarse file to it to make his ultimate target pistol. He removed the rear sight from the barrel and dovetailed a homemade replacement into the rear toggle, filed finger notch into the frontstrap under the trigger bow and cut/filed off the stock lug, thinned the trigger face and whittled grooves into the grips. The poor thing looked awful when I bought it for $200 in the 1990s (sorry, no surviving 'before' photos.) I had a local smith add metal back to the frame via welding (no stock lug, though), replaced the rear toggle, trigger, barrel and grips, and then spent a couple years tweaking the substitute parts until things functioned properly. Reliability was never stellar, but it worked.



Then last year I got the bright idea of having the gripframe professionally coated to hide all the rewelds. I found a local dude who did a beautiful job:



The only downside was that a whole new problem had surfaced: the trigger no longer engaged the sear to release the striker. I tried swapping around a couple of trigger levers and strikers I had in my spares kit, but no combo made any difference. Finally, last Sunday I devoted about three hours to the problem, concentrating on isolating every variable in the components involved in firing, and eventually I found that if I held the triggerplate in place with pressure near the top and without rotating the locking bolt closed, the trigger functioned properly. Looking very closely, I found a minute area of excess coating on the frame, just ahead of the trigger pivot; a little scraping with an X-acto knife, plus some polishing on the lower reverse side of the trigger plate and I was back in business.

I'm rapidly losing my romantic attachment to Lugers -- I've debugged this one three times now, and the tolerances necessary for reliable function are just too arcane for me. When the LGS reopen, I'll look for a good trade.

 

[Speedo66]

That's a shame that someone would do that to any gun, let alone a collectible.

I had an S-42 war bring back Luger made by Mauser that functioned like a clock, every shot. It was at least a 98% gun, every number matching. It got valuable to the point where I stopped shooting it out of fear I'd break a numbered part.

If I didn't shoot it, I didn't want it, so it got sold for triple what I'd paid for it.

 

[boom boom]

Not a rifle, but I finally debugged a problem with the trigger on my P08 Luger parts gun. This one started life as an artillery Lange Pistol and some idiot about three owners back read something a gunmag and took a hacksaw and coarse file to it to make his ultimate target pistol. He removed the rear sight from the barrel and dovetailed a homemade replacement into the rear toggle, filed finger notch into the frontstrap under the trigger bow and cut/filed off the stock lug, thinned the trigger face and whittled grooves into the grips. The poor thing looked awful when I bought it for $200 in the 1990s (sorry, no surviving 'before' photos.) I had a local smith add metal back to the frame via welding (no stock lug, though), replaced the rear toggle, trigger, barrel and grips, and then spent a couple years tweaking the substitute parts until things functioned properly. Reliability was never stellar, but it worked.

View attachment 913441

Then last year I got the bright idea of having the gripframe professionally coated to hide all the rewelds. I found a local dude who did a beautiful job:

View attachment 913442

The only downside was that a whole new problem had surfaced: the trigger no longer engaged the sear to release the striker. I tried swapping around a couple of trigger levers and strikers I had in my spares kit, but no combo made any difference. Finally, last Sunday I devoted about three hours to the problem, concentrating on isolating every variable in the components involved in firing, and eventually I found that if I held the triggerplate in place with pressure near the top and without rotating the locking bolt closed, the trigger functioned properly. Looking very closely, I found a minute area of excess coating on the frame, just ahead of the trigger pivot; a little scraping with an X-acto knife, plus some polishing on the lower reverse side of the trigger plate and I was back in business.

I'm rapidly losing my romantic attachment to Lugers -- I've debugged this one three times now, and the tolerances necessary for reliable function are just too arcane for me. When the LGS reopen, I'll look for a good trade.

From all your work on Lugers, you are far ahead of the rest of us in gunsmithing them. Lugers have gotten pricey enough that probably like old Pythons, a lot more people collect them than shoot them and I bet that gunsmiths see very few of them and even fewer would know how to go about troubleshooting one like you did.

 

[WestKentucky]

I’m crossing off projects like crazy. Getting down to the big projects that take more money and time now, so I’m leaning more into reloading than to tackling those just yet. So far, the projects completed have been:

• finished drill/tap on the top strap of my model 10
• Got parts found fitted and installed on safety hammerless 38
• Got safety hammerless 32 back to functioning
• Got the Miroku revolver cleaned up and functioning right
• Got the reloading bench dug out and cleaned back up to where it can be used

The remaining stuff...

• dovetail slot on buntline 357 barrel to reinstall ejector housing
• Make a stock for the buntline 357 (thinking of using a 10/22 stock forend and butt but chopping out the action portion)
• Build a new frame for the trashed Colt New Line 22
• Build the arisaka t38 into a target rifle
• Build out the parts kit 22 bolt action into a bolt pistol and a contender barrel (chop barrel, make barrel lug for contender, completely make the bolt pistol... chipmunk style but a little different put them both together and hope for the best...
• Mold and start making a few 80% poly lowers for me and my kids to build into rifles.
  
• Make holsters for the antiques that dont have readily available holsters... I have never really done leatherwork so this is gonna be harder than it sounds.

 

[doubleh]

Nice work, Schlegal. Enjoy.

I plan to build a pistol rest top for my front rest next week. It's not a big project and won't take a lot of time, maybe a day because I'm slow. Then I'll be at loose ends unless the wind will quit blowing so I can go shoot and not be just wasting ammo.

I hope my wife doesn't catch on or she will find honey dos for me.