rustvyper Posted January 28, 2009 Report Share Posted January 28, 2009 If you look here. I posted about how I practically stole a 98 action with a 25-06 barrel already mated to it. The action had been miss-d&T'd & the bolt had a cruddy attempt at a sporter bolt welded on. When I tried to clean up the weld, a crack appeared so I wacked it with a rubber mallet & it came off! The whole rig had a light speckle rust to it & hadn't been touched in years according to the guy I got it from. Well, while I'm on paternity leave I thought I had better try to get this knocked out! Decisions, decisions...the best part about sporterizing! I decided to put this into a choate 98 stock with the blind bottom magazine. I could have ordered new bottom metal with it, but I thought this would be lighter. I'm going to try to make this a lighter rifle for deer & pred hunting that I can tote a distance & can take a beating. With that idea in mind, I decided to also duracoat this gun in a stainless steel. That'll keep me from having to get to involved with finishing out this metal so I can spend time with new baby girl. I also am using the b-square allen head action screws since this one didn't come with any. The safety was missing off the bolt as well, so I'm installing a bold trigger with side safety. Step one...Here it is: As you can see, holes are missaligned. A yugo captured 98. As Clemson suggested - I marked the alignment of the barrel with the receiver by lightly marking it with the dremel. The one thing this guy did right was have a gunsmith install & true the barrel. (I know, I checked!) I call this the poor LT's barrel vise. It actually works if you clamp hard enough! This weekend I took the receiver & bolt over to a buds to MIG weld. I'd prefer TIG, but he doesn't know how, & I'm trying to keep this project cheap & ain't nothing cheaper than free! Here we are all ready to go. What a gorilla weld! This is gonna take some serious filing! But he did a pretty good job with the receiver. There seems to be a bit of a divet left on one of the front holes, but I'm drilling in a different spot & it'll be covered by duracoat & the weaver mount anyway. Say what you want about duracoat, it covers a ton of mistakes! Tonight I shaped the bolt handle & cleaned up the weld. It turned out to be a good job for as nervous as my friend was. I need to finish smooth it & get all the rust off the receiver. Saturday I plan on D&T'ing remounting the barrel to the receiver & if I'm feeling really froggy, duracoat the whole deal. Total cost so far: -$45 action, bolt, barrel -$103.62 stock & screws -$38 bold trigger -$? bolt handle (I don't remember how much I paid, it was laying around.) -$16.95 duracoat ='s $203.57 so far. Can't buy a POS remington from BPS for that! I'm proud of myself so far! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ken98k Posted January 28, 2009 Report Share Posted January 28, 2009 I've never heard of mig welding a receiver, Did it get hot? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spiris Posted January 28, 2009 Report Share Posted January 28, 2009 I sure hope that you did not loose the temper in the receiver and the inner lug stands. It could get ugly. Spiris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rustvyper Posted January 28, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 28, 2009 Nope, I was worried about that as well - but I had it smeared with heat paste. He applied the welder to each hole for less than a second. The receiver was cool to touch after the welds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CTI Posted January 29, 2009 Report Share Posted January 29, 2009 Do you have to bake the duracoat or is it the kind that you just let dry on its own? Will it stay on pretty good? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rustvyper Posted February 1, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 1, 2009 Duracoat's a non-bake on. It doesn't look near as nice as a mirrored blue finish, but for anything else it's hard to beat. It's tougher than nails & almost impossible to scratch or flake. It applies real easy with a quality hobby airbrush. Well my project is 90% there. I D&T'd the receiver correctly & have fir & finished the action to the new bold trigger. Also installed a commercial sporter shroud I had in my drawer, so tack on another $40 to the final price. Why the heck are those things so expensive?! I still have to duracoat & then fit the action to the choat stock. I was dissapointed at first with the choate. It seemed, well...cheap, cheaper than a ram-line. But the more I mess with it, the more I like it. The receiver & action are all in the white right now & so I can pretty much put it together & see what it's gonna look like. It's going to look real sharp. The inletting on the stock was small. It doesn't even fit & will get worse with a couple coats of duracoat on it. I like that though. Small I can fix, too big I cannot. I'll add some more pics here soon. I expect to have to rifle done by next weekend hopefully. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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