Just to bring you up to date with my latest efforts in the workshop.. a mate brought a gun into me for some TLC and de-bubbaing!
The rifle in question was a Walther Sport model V. A single shot, pre war .22 rifle in the sporting style. Another mate had bought it through a "well known auction site" but was a "bit disappointed" when it arrived, and it had been languishing at the back of a gun cabinet ever since...
The gun was in a pretty sorry state...
1. Someone had decided to shorten the stock at some point and lopped about 2" off the stock. Why anyone would want to do this confuses me as the rifle is far too long and heavy for a youth gun and was completely unbalanced by the modification. At some point the stock had been re-lengthened by glueing and screwing a roughly shaped block of wood to the stock with two long screws, but with no attempt at matching it up with the existing stock.
2. A large steel bushing had been threaded into the forend stock for some purpose that escapes me. It was far too far back for a bipod and was very roughly made.
4. None of the stock screws were present or the barrel bearing nut which dovetailed into the underside of the action. The rifle had obviously been used with telescopic sights as the iron rear sight and foreside blades had been remove, but leaving the mountings. The proper trigger guard was missing and had been replaced with one of the wrong size held in place with electrical tape..
5. Despite the fact that the rifle was a pre war, single shot .22 someone had decided it needed to have its muzzle threaded for a sound moderator, now missing and with threads exposed...
Arrrgh...!
The first job was to strip down the beast and see if there were any other gremlins.. yup an internal stock crack and a cracked firing pin...
The stock had obviously been sanded at some point after being cut down and the edges of the butt were rounded over. I had to cut the stock back another 1/2" to get to a point where the stock was parallel. I could then fix a block of walnut to replace the missing stock. (you can see the old block in the blue tray..)
The extension piece was fixed in place with black agraglass and long screws. The stock had obviously been split previously (How?) and partially fixed, however a large gap had been left between the rear action screw and the trigger slot. This got filled with a sliver of walnut and more agraglass...
The next task was to remove the steel plug....
The hole was filled with a plug cut from walnut with the grain running in the appropriate direction...
The original trigger guard had been replaced with another one of the wrong type. I was able to borrow another MkV and copy the profile to allow me to machine and file a replacement from aluminium...
This at least allowed me to line up the action screws and make up new ones...
To deal with the bare muzzle threads, I made a new muzzle cap and blued it. I also managed to find a matching pre-war Zeiss scope that would fit it.. The barrel and action were also a bit scabby, so I ran it through the steam pipe a few times to freshen up the blue..
After the agraglass on the stock had set up, I was then able to bring it down to the profile of the stock using chisel and spokeshaves. I also used one of these Japanese rasps that look like a bundle of hacksaw blades riveted together.. very good and highly recommended!
Finally the rest of the stock was re-sanded and re-finished and a new butt plate fitted. I freshened up the chequering and finished the stock with alkanet and rapid oil which brought it all to an even colour..
The last job was to test fire it which showed up a burr on the chamber which prevented it from ejecting cases! .22s of this era are a bit prone to this and is a result of dry firing! I have a special tool that irons down the bump!
All done and back to the owner....!
