Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Results of the winter projectter project rifle

I had posted some time back http://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/9450528/1
about my winter project rifle an old Husky 1600 in .30-06. The project is as complete as my time now allows and has been passed onto my nephew-in-law.

First of all big thanks to Dwayne aka BC30cal your advice, experience, photos and perspective on this project were greatly appreciated.

This project was taken on as a learning experience / experiment, I learned a few things and confirmed a few things.

First up was patching a large chip right at the for-end. The stock is beech and all I had on hand for suitable wood was some light coloured walnut. The colour did not match but after I had squared up the chip with a chisel and a straight edge I pinned and epoxied in an over sized piece of walnut and filed it to fit. The colour doesn't match but you can't feel the joint.

Next was the crack in the wrist and I followed Dwayne's advice, drilled a hole into the wrist from the tang area inserted a fluted hard wood dowel and a large amount of epoxy. Once the epoxy had cured ,I carefully removed the exposed dowel and and shaped back to the original tang contour.

I then met with my nephew-in-law and measured the rifle to fit. Due to Steve's large size (6'6" plus I think) long arms and big hands fitting a minimum of 1" recoil pad and removing the barest minimum of wood to square the butt whilst keeping the original angle betwixt the bore and butt pad was step one, next was rather than replacing the missing grip cap with another I added on a piece of walnut to extend the grip so as to give Steve's little finger a place to rest. I used two hard wood dowel pins and of course epoxy (acraglass)to secure this.

In order for a proper cheek weld with scope usage the cheek piece had to be raised. I offered to epoxy on a check piece and file fit but felt the result would look rather horrid with conventional finish and suggested that if we went this a spray paint finish might look best. Steve went for a more conventional finish with a neoprene cuff with inserts to raise the comb.

Now here is where I departed from the norm into experimentation. Lee Valley Tools sells a very interesting two stage epoxy which when mixed has the viscosity of varnish, yet is designed to penetrate into old, dry or rotten wood stabilizing it for repair or renovation. I have used this in the past for its intended purpose and was quite impressed.

Testing on few samples had shown that the epoxy would penetrate well into dry wood of course quite variable in depth dependent upon pore density etc. "What the hell let's finish the rifle in epoxy, it glass bedded in epoxy, this will seal the wood and give a very durable finish".

The unforeseen challenges with using this epoxy as a finish is that it does not "lie down' evenly and with its varying degrees of penetration leaves some areas of wood with a rather thick covering and other places filled pores and little else. Wet sand clean up apply coat two. Wet sand until smooth, clean up. The epoxy at a certain thickness added a nice bit of darkening and reddening to the beech, less than that thickness the wood has very white look with the pores darkened.

Rather than go through more epoxy / sanding cycles until I had the right thickness through out I thought a nice bit of flat spray varnish on top would even up the colour. It did but not enough, the stock still has a bit of a piebald appearance.

I checked with Steve about his thoughts, the gun fits him very well, it puts 3 180 grain Federal Blue Box rounds into 1 to 1.25" at 100 yards with a 4x scope (my testing); 'I don't really care how it looks its awesome!".

Steve is happy. I have learned a lot. The Lee Valley epoxy is the cats meow for sealing wood inside the in-letting, it would be great sealing before a rattle can treatment, not great as a primary finish.

The rifle is handed off and god willing Steve will his first deer with it this fall.

Thanks again Dwayne, and thanks for the other folks who have chipped in their advice with regard to the old Husqvarnas.

GRF







Final thought ( and nothing new here ) a rifle that is too long kicks more than it should. I knew this but it was re-enforced shooting this long for me rifle. Makes me glad that I have always shortened firearms for "my girls" (wife and daughter) and I will do so if we get grand kids.

All the best GRF

GRF;
Good evening to you sir, hopefully this finds you and yours well and thanks for sharing the photos of your project.

As it happens I've got a similar Husky in .308 in the process of being refinished in my garage as we speak - oh and yes the wrist was cracked in it too.

Anyway sir, your project rifle turned out very well as far as I can see and I'm hoping that it turns out to be a "lucky" arm for your nephew in law.

Thanks again for sharing the photos and story with us and all the best to you and your fine family this summer.

Dwayne

Dwayne; how is the trigger on the Husqvarna you are working on? The one I worked on was a bit heavy but very crisp and clean so quite usable.

GRF;
This one is about the same way - 3½ lb and reasonably crisp.

I'm doing this one up for a good friend who will use it as a loaner rifle possibly or perhaps as a gift for shooter who doesn't get a lot of range time.

While we kicked around a replacement trigger, I've talked him out of it so far as I'm of the opinion that a crisp 3½ lb trigger is fine for folks who don't shoot a lot.

Thanks again and all the best to you and your fine family this summer sir.

Dwayne

Looks like a cool project those Husky's are really nice guns. Sounds like it is going to shoot well.......

Good info and nice to see another Husqvarna brought back into use. I like them a lot, though they have their weaknesses like everything else. They typically are a bunch of gun for the money though!

That looks really nice!

I really love those Huskies a lot. You did a nice job!