Fellow Campfire folks;
This is a bit of a double post, as I've put it up on BC site I frequent as well, but for those interested in such matters, here it is.
The project began to gel in my mind as early as last summer when our eldest daughter Amy-Liz moved to the Island and began to carry on the time honored family tradition of tenting in bear infested areas.
Initially I encouraged her to pick up some bear spray and a holster, but as we all know, spray is less than useless when one is INSIDE one's tent.
Thus it struck me that the simple solution was to build her something similar to what she's seen resting beside my sleeping bag most times when we tented in spots where it was legal to do so.
The foundation for the project was a screaming Boxing Day sale item I found while perusing the Prophet River site. I've dealt with Clayton a few times and find both him and his website super easy to deal with. In short order this arrived via the good folks at Canada Post.
The sharp eyed among us will appreciate the vintage duck loads I've found for the photo.
It's a base model Lakefield Mossberg 500AB with a 3" chamber. The actions, parts and stocks were made in Canada, but as far as I'm aware the barrels all came from the US.
This is a partial pile of parts and pieces assembled for the project - more on that as we trundle on.
The TruGlo bead and Decelerator come from the good folks at Western Gun Parts in Edmonton, who while not the cheapest always, invariably have good stock and better yet know what they've got.
The Hi-Viz, machined Delrin magazine follower comes from a Canadian outfit - S&J Hardware. I ordered a Day Glo Green and Blaze Orange one to see what they looked like. Amy[-Liz chose the Blaze Orange so mine now has the green - again more on that later.
link to S&J:
http://sjhardware.com/store/modules....cPath=107_1235It's a bit of a trick to take the magazine tube off of a Lakefield Mossberg - not the same as a Mossberg apparently as I found out..... Anyway if anyone is interested sometime I can outline the process which I first performed on mine and then after figuring it out did the project's in less time. Here's the Blaze Orange one installed.
To say they work slick is an understatement and my only regret with them is not ordering the kit which included a new stronger spring. So of course my OCD kicked in and there's now two new springs coming from Ontario as I type - oh and a kit too which I'm going to install into a co-worker's Lakefield Mossberg sometime too.
Next the barrel gets shortened to a tad below 19" - I do that so it's not ambiguous or anywhere close to 18.5" and even the most enthusiastic LEO will be okay with it...... long story there, not all of it good.
Then once we've arrived at dead center, a new hole is drilled, then tapped for the TruGlo bead.
These beads really show up in low light conditions and I'm a big fan. I should also note that they're epoxied in place - just because.
Now we tear the moving parts out and give them all a thorough scrubbing - first with something like Butch's and/or Brake Clean and then a good coating of something like Break Free CLP or G96 CLP. This one hadn't been given a good cleaning since the '80's I'd say.
The butt stock got a coating of G2 epoxy, then some sanding and finally a few coats of Tru-Oil for looks. It's been shortened to 13" pull, including the Decelerator. An Allen butt cuff is a little old school, but they work fine and are easy to replace, so on one went.
Lastly I installed a sling mount stud, but fairly far forward so if one wants to carry it either muzzle up or muzzle down it rides high.
Here's what the bear repellent rig looks like once all the parts are assembled.
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Here's the last shot of Amy-Liz's along with mine - I'm fairly confident her's will give her at least as many years of good service as mine has - and I've had mine 42 years now.
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Anyway that's the build for the most part.
If anyone has any questions as to how or why I went a certain way I'd be more than happy to try to answer.
Thanks for looking and all the best to you all this BC Family Day weekend.
Dwayne