Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Relaxing

Forgot how relaxing it can be to get a cheap rat home and spend an evening cleaning the crud and dirt out of it. Love it when a barrel that's so dirty you can barely see down it comes out clean and shiny after some foaming bore cleaner.

Cheaper and less deadlier than drugs for relieving stress.

Some would say just as addictive though...

foaming bore cleaner, I need to get some. I just got in from garage cleaning the 99 but using the trusty old CLP. seems like the barrel hadn't been touched in years

Didja pour a teakettle of boiling water through the receiver too??

Yep, foaming bore cleaner is awesome for getting the copper out. 20 minutes sitting and one patch pushed a gob of blue out the end. I'll hit it a couple more times, but betting the third one is clear. That gun hadn't been cleaned in 50 years at least. Gun Slick is good, think I have some some Hoppes also. Both great.

Fine bronze wool is your best friend outside of the barrel.

And, yeah.. It can be addictive. Cheaper than restoring cars, tho. And you can usually recoup your money, or even increase it.

Not this go round... But did think about it, inside of receiver and rotor aren't horrible. Did pull the bolt, man was that disgusting. Still got some discoloration on there, but 90% of it came off.

First time I'd seen normal T7 sunken head screws with the F and R stamps, my others had the knurled head screws (or whatever ya call them). Somebody needs to stamp a couple hundred of those.

Sounds like fun stuff to me.

As far as foam cleaners, I have discovered that Wipe Out is the best of the lot.

I used to have a fly tackle monkey on my back and years after I graduated from high school I ran into an old PE coach at a yard sale who collected the same stuff. He said he considered it therapy for guys like us. I just wish he'd said something that practical when he was my high school teacher but it is very therapeutic and rewarding to bring an old firearm (or any mechanical device) back to life after decades of neglect. What are you working on?

Heavily varnished 99G in 300 with T7 and Weaver 440 is the victim. Or maybe I'm the victim? One of those at least...

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't G's of that vintage have oil finished stocks, not varnished? If so, since Bubba has already had his way with it and "collector" value is gone, why not strip it and re-finish with oil? That big ding on the RH side is the biggest whoopsee that I see.

How clear is the scope?

If it were anything other than a .300 I would offer to take it off your hands!

Yes, it should have an oil finish.. and I'm just not ready to do a full strip and refinish - which should include recutting the checkering as well. It's got good bones, but with the side mount and sling swivels it's never going to be more than a shooter. I'm gonna see what I can get done with just some lesser effort and hopefully turn it into a nicer shooter.

You, my good sir, could make this wood look like factory.

The optics are actually amazingly good. Narrow field of view, of course, but clear glass. Tho the post(!) does have some dust on it.. debating whether to open the scope up to clean that off. Didn't know it was a post reticle when I bought it, that was a very pleasant surprise.

As to that big ding on the right hand side.. I have hopes for it.

As it came in the door:



As it sits now:

Lookin' good!

I wouldn't try to clean that post. Bust it and you're busted.

Yeah, that's why I didn't address it last night. Well, that and we got 4 inches of rain and the humidity is through the roof, not what you want to trap inside an old scope. ;grin:
Wasn't wanting to touch it, thinking maybe just blowing some air through it and hope that the dust comes off. It is very distracting.

Don't sweat the atmospheric air inside the scope. They weren't nitrogen purged/sealed when new, nor are the lens coated with anything approaching modern coatings, if at all.

I'd use a light duty stripper on the stock and scrub the checkering out with a good stiff tooth brush or a small bristle brush. It looks like the checkering may be filled up with old varnish. I'd then refinish with Chem-Pak Pro-Custom Oil Gunstock Finish. It might not be an "original" type finish but you can make it mimic the looks of an original oil finish real well and it's good stuff. Be sure to hit the checkering with the tooth brush after each coat to keep it from building up. That's a cool old G and it should clean up real nice. I also like the old side mount and Weaver 440. Leatherwood makes a modern reproduction of the military version of the old Weaver 330. That might be a good alternative if you want to go with modern optics on the old side mount.

I don't worry about it too much, until the relative humidity is around 80%. Then I'll wait for a day when it drops down to something less swampy..

Fill the scope with clear vodka. Handy for a nip when shivering in the deer stand too.

There are a bazillion formulas for oil finishes, and an equal number of techniques for applying them. If you want to duplicate the oil finish as used at the Armory's and commercial factories pre-WWII, just dunk the thing in a pot of pure tung oil or boiled linseed oil (not raw linseed oil- it'll never dry completely), wipe off, and go forth and kill stuff with it. They weren't going for the very best finish- they were going for cheap.