I acquired Mossberg Model 185 D-C made in 1958. It is in very bad shape and missing the magazine but I know a source for a factory replacement. I plan to make a project out of restoring it. It is not a particularly valuable gun but I like a challenge. I do not intend to create a show piece but rather a functional and usable hunting gun. There is no finish at all remaining on the wooden stock and it has some stains. The bolt is pretty rusty. And there is a good deal of rust on the outside of all the metal parts.. I would have thrown the gun away if it were not for the bore. I was surprised to find it shiny and in great condition. I stripped the whole gun down and began the process of removing the rust and bluing. I have never tried this product before but It was on closeout sale at Walmart for $2 a bottle so I picked up three of them. It smells awful (sort of like rotten eggs and vinegar) and is a thick and sticky liquid once it touches the metal. I was surprised at how well it removed the bluing but it had little effect on the deep rust. I applied it with 000 steel wool. I did the entire barrel and then used 400 grit wet/dry sandpaper to knock down the rust. The pitting was pretty deep but the rust remover worked deeper than I could get with the sandpaper. It's hard to see but the pitting is visible. I am a long way from being able to re-blue the gun but I couldn't help myself and wanted to see what it will look like finished so I did a small portion of the barrel. I don't think I will use this brand of bluing but rather something a little better from Brownells but I was curious to see what the metal would look like. When finished with the test, I used the blue remover again and some steel wool to take off the temporary blue.
I am becoming more impressed with the blue and rust remover. I apply it with a tooth brush and keep the area wetted for about 10 minutes. I don't scrub the part but rather I just keep it wet. Here is the base plate that covers the magazine opening. I only applied it to one portion to show the effect. I also did one of the large fasteners. Here are the results. I then did the trigger and after I polished it, I applied blueing. This was again, the Birchwood Casey Bluing but I will buy a higher quality bluing from Brownells and hopefully get a better color and coverage. I took all the remaining small parts and put them in a Ziplock bag and poured the blue remover in and sealed it up. While that had time to work, I began to work the wooden stock. With the finish mostly gone and the stains, I could not tells what sort of wood I an dealing with. I used 100 grit and then 220 in my palm sander and as soon as I started sanding, I knew exactly what kind wood it was just by the smell. It's good old American Walnut. I dipped my finger in a can of varnish and touched the wood to see what I can expect for a finish color. I think this stock will be nicer looking than I had hoped. I then went back to the metal parts and scrubbed them and sanded away all the rusty spots. I degreased the metal frame that goes around the magazine opening and then blued it. There are lots of little parts to clean and blue and I need to order the replacement magazine.
I spent the day removing bluing and rust from the many parts of the shotgun. After I would soak the parts in a ziploc bag of bluing remover, I would wash them and then sand away all the rust and then go over them with fine steel wool. I would then wash the parts down with Acetone and then blue them with Dicropan T4. I ordered a bottle of Dicropan and a can or gun part baking lacquer from Brownells because I wanted a better grade of blue. After bluing each part once, I would go over them with fine steel wool and wash them again in acetone and then give them a second bluing. the most rusty part was the bolt. I followed above steps with the bolt and here are some pictures. Not only is there a lot of rust but it is deeply pitted. This is after the soak in the bluing remover and a clean up with 400 grit and steel wool. This is after the 2nd bluing. I think all the parts will be well protected with the double bluing but I decided to give the parts additional protection by spraying the baking lacquer over the bluing. The instructions call for 3 light dustings and then an hour at 300F. Here are the parts going in the oven in the man room. The instructions on the can of baking lacquer say that over spray can be cleaned up with acetone but once the coating is baked on that it can only be removed with sand blasting. I would expect that it has to be pretty durable to stand up to gun cleaning solvents and oil. We shall see but even if the coating does wear off over time, the metal below will have been blued. Here are the parts after the hour at 300F The adjustable choke. Safety Magazine retention clip. Trigger Magazine opening. Firing pin. That rusty old bolt.
With all the small part finished, I could focus on the barrel. It took a long time to get rid of all the old bluing and the rust but in order to get a good finish on the metal, it was time well spent. I then double blued the barrel and rubbed it down with steel wool after the 2nd bluing I was so impressed, I took a few extra pictures of the barrel. Once again, I'm pretty sure that level of protection (once oiled) would work well but I decided to cover all the metal with the baking lacquer. Again, If the lacquer ever gets chipped or wears off, there will be nicely blued metal underneath. I could not fit the whole barrel in my oven so I made a make shift oven from an electric hot plate and a piece of stove pipe. I supported the barrel by hanging it from a wire attached to a metal rod across the opening. I used a scrap of plywood wrapped in aluminum foil as a lid. I drilled a hole for a temp probe so I could keep track of the inside temp. During the hour that the barrel cooked, I sanded down the rest of the wooden stock in preparation for finishing. Here is the cooled barrel. I then assembled all the parts of the action. Since there was no oil on any of the parts, I set the action in the stock to see how it would look. With all the metal parts done, I started to focus on the stock and gave it the first of many coats of polyurethane.
The finish is dry so I assembled the gun and took a few pictures. I got word that I should have the replacement magazine by early next week. I have already started on the next gun. It's a 50 year old Remington 522 speedmaster .22 cal that is in worse shape then this gun was.
This gun is a Remington Speedmaster .22 cal made in 1958 and is in far worse shape than the old Mossberg I recently restored. It has a lot more rust and the stock is broken. It is also a semi-auto so there are far more pieces to deal with. Like the last gun, this one is also in throw-away condition except that the bore is clean and without rust. the receiver is aluminum and a lot of the finish is gone and there are deep scratches in the metal. Here are some pics. It has a tubular magazine that is also pretty rusty. The stock is broken where it meets the receiver. As well as having a broken butt plate and missing pieces of wood. I wonder if this is how Remington built the gun 51 years ago? This one is going to be a real challenge. I don't think this gun has ever been disassembled or cleaned and I found a lot of grit and grime impacted in all the crevices. Areas that I thought were solid metal were just hardened gunk and once I used solvents and a pick was able to get the parts clean. Only two pins hold the entire trigger mechanism in place. the whole gun can be disassembled with a screwdriver and a pin punch. There seems no end to the level of parts that this gun can be broken down into. The large round piece at the bottom is the safety. There was no bluing on it at all and the red (Fire) paint was gone as well. With a little TLC, it looks like new. To remove the black anodizing from the aluminum, I used fine grit sandpaper and steel wool. I won't be able to remove a lot of the deep dings and scratches and I'm ok with that. It only has to be a functional working gun and not a show piece. Here it is after the spray on gun coat was applied and baked. And the re-assembled trigger mechanism.
The rest of the parts are steel and will need the bluing removed and then I will re-blue and oil them. As soon as I took possession of this gun, I did a search for replacement parts for the wooden stock because I knew I couldn't fix what I had. I went online to Remington's website and they had both pieces of wood (without the butt plate) for $180. I'm sure that is 3 times as much as this gun cost new and since I can buy a new .22 for that much, I looked elsewhere. As luck would have it, I found not only both pieces of wood but also the butt plate being sold on EBay with only one day left in the auction. It was listed as a buy it now for $25 so I did. The wood was in good shape except for some scratches and the finish missing so I stripped and sanded and found that it was made from hard rock Maple. I stained the wood with a dark American walnut stain and gave it 6 coats of spar urathane varnish (semi gloss) and then steel wooled it and applied and oil polish. It turned out nice and dark. Refinishing the barrel of this old gun was a chore. The rust had pitted the metal pretty deep. There's nothing really that I can do about it so I just have to deal with it. Here is the barrel after all the rust and blue was removed. A close up shows the pitting. Here it is after being twice blued. With all parts refinished, it's time to reassemble this mess of parts. I hope I don't have left over items when finished. The last thing I added to this gun was a new set of scope mounts and an old fixed 4 power scope. This will make it a good squirrel gun. Here it is all finished and with a good rub down with orange oil All that's left to do is sew a case out of that denim fabric the gun was sitting on. One more old gun brought back to life.
What a great thread! So glad that you posted this. I have a 12guage that didn't do to well after a flood. The bore is perfect but the outside is all rusted. I actually pulled it out just a few days ago and was going to start working on it but was actually thinking of camo dipping it after I get it all cleaned up. I wasn't sure what to use to get all the rust off so I guess I will be off to Wally world this afternoon to see if they sell that stuff.
Unfreaking believable!!!! BTW, I have 2 of those Speedmasters that are in awesome shape. I've been coon hunting and squirrel hunting with it since my grandpa gave them to me when I was 16.
Sure I sleep. I just try and maximize the awake time. Winters here are long. Its dark at 4:30 pm and too cold to do much outside and I built a man-cave for doing projects during the long cold nights.
Rancid, since you are so close to me, I got a couple of projects , when you get spare time, LOLOLOL !
You had best clear these through Mrs. Crabtree (Elvira Mertle) Don't make any sudden moves and try not to look her directly in the eye when you talk. Its best to keep your hands in your pocket while looking down at your shoes while you talk. Let me know what she says.
