A buddy bought a pile of guns from an estate and in it was a Winchester model 69 with no magazines and an old 4x Weaver that had the stock cut down to about 11” LOP and the barrel to 16 1/4” to make a kids rifle, neither job was done well by a long shot and to claim it was rough was an understatement. Oh and the barrel has deep stamping that was put on it as it was apparently a gift to a girl at one point. I gave him schitttt about having it for years and the other day the bastard gifted it to my 6yo son while my back was turned.
There was clearly no value left in it whatsoever so we made it a father son weekend project. We sanded the rust spots on the metal out with 1500 grit wet or dry and wiped 2 coats of Birchwood Casey blue on the metal which is still a little patchy but my son had fun doing it and it helped the looks immensely.
I was pushing to strip and sand the stock out smooth but my boy decided it needed to be Gap camo like daddy’s rifle so we replaced the recoil pad with a spare pacemaker I had laying around, put on 3 coats of sandable primer to fill the grain and 3 coats of Krylon OD. The 6 yo handled the tan and black sponge job himself and it’s far from pretty as he didn’t understand “gentle dabs” but hell he did it himself and made it “his”. Now to wait for for the 4 coats of clear to dry for a few days the. reassemble it
Oh and i guess I need to find some magazines now. 🙄
. I had some wolf match in the truck door and off the mirror it did about 1 1/4” at 50ish yds onto a paper plate. Kinda hard being 6’4” shooting 11” LOP
Came out nice. Congrats. Few years ago I was looking for a .22 youth rifle or something that could be turned into one. Couldn't find anything and finally picked up a Savage Rascal on sale that also had a $50. rebate from Savage. It's for the step grand kids and it shoots good but I was hoping to get a project rifle. That way the kids could have had a hand in the project and it would have more meaning to them.
Making memories and spending dad time with your young hunter, Priceless!
"Camping places fix themselves in your mind as if you had spent long periods of your life in them. You will remember a curve of your wagon track in the grass of the plain like the features of a friend." Isak Dinesen
Most of the Win 69 are great shooters. I did about the same project with my grandson several years ago. His is an old Savage that was left in a fleece lined case for years. It is a good shooter but not pretty.