montea6b

Cue sound of crickets: "chirp... chirp... chirp..."

Our friends had a lab that swallowed blankets. The first time they didn't know what it was, and were everyone in the surgery room was astounded when the vet started pulling the blanket out... like a magican pulling linked scarves out of a hat. The second time they decided they'd better try even harder to keep blankets out of reach of the knucklehead. The third time the dog sealed his own fate...

Just curious, what is Fedora and Ubuntu?

"Extra virgin"... "Rape seed"... I'm starting to get offended.

I thought it was a hat too... No idea about "fedora" the program, but you might want to go through control panel into your mouse settings and browse the options there. I don't know what system you are running, but in mine there was a check box option to "show location of pointer when I press the CTRL key", (annoying, but might be a work around...) and a "hide pointer while typing" check box. I'd try various combinations of checking and un-checking these and other options to see what happens.

You forgot the all important first step: market research. You can't make money if there is no need or want for your product/service. True enough that small businesses open all the time, but they also close all the time as well. The last town we lived in the old part of town was like a revolving door of small businesses, even in good times. You'd see some well meaning people put their savings into opening a small shop that matched their hobbies and passion, and invariably within a year the "for lease" sign would be back up. Some of them were neat little places, but I really used to wonder sometimes what they pulled in when I'd be the only one in the store, spend a half hour wandering, and come away buying a $3.00 widget... probably didn't even pay for the lights while I was browsing, let alone the dude's lunch. You need a competitive advantage. What can you offer that the other guy doesn't or can't? Either find yourself a high margin niche, or find a product where you can push some decent volume. (Or the proper mix of the two.) I hate to sound pessimistic, but that's the reality that a lot of folks don't always face. I'd love to make a living doing/selling what I like, but I gotta pay the bills and it's a big leap to take to hang a shingle and hope that the customers will show up at your door and throw money your way. You really need to crunch the numbers first. Any financial institution lending startup money will demand it as well.

That fact hit me last night just as I was drifting off to sleep!

Nice looking Don. Question though, from the overhead view it looks like it would hit the bolt shroud before the stop lever move out far enough to release. Am I seeing things?

I ran across a couple Garand receivers today in the milsurp area of a local antique store after breakfast out with the family. He was asking $150 for one, but the price tag on the other was turned around and I didn't want to act too interested. (again the family was with me! ) Anyhow, that seemed pretty reasonable, although I didn't check who made them. Some browsing on Gunbroker confirmed that the Springfields go for a lot more, although there are some other brands for around that. I've wanted a Garand for years, but have never taken the plunge. This might be a good excuse to put one together. Questions: 1. Is $150 a pretty good deal? 2. Are there any manufacturers or serial number ranges to stay away from? 3. How much work is involved with installing and headspacing a barrel? (I have a 30-06 reamer, headspace gauges, and a barrel vise, but no Garand action wrench or lathe.) 4. Anybody have a rough price tag for a barrel, parts kit and stock? 5. Anything else to beware of? (i.e. not fully machined or heat treated rough castings... and what to look for to tell if this is the case)

It could serve a purpose... check this out: Mauser tang sight Pretty cool I think. By the way Don, that looks real nice! Please post more photos once fully inlet and that beautiful stick of wood is finished. P.S. I wonder how one would adjust elevation on a sight like that?

I've seen one in a checkered manlicher stock, it looked really nice. That's another idea I had, was to just face lift a Chipmunk. Make it look like a shrunken custom Mauser, i.e. shadowline cheekpiece, ebony tip, skeleton grip cap and butt plate, etc. Would make a nice father son project... if only I didn't have 3 girls! I was thinking about the Springfield musket because I have a round cast off Mauser barrel to use. (I have plenty of tomato stakes already...) However, a Hawken style rifle would be fun to try. I'm scared of trying to grind/file in the barrel flats without a mill. Anybody ever done this by hand before?

That's what I'm talking about! I'd love to be able to create something like those. My thought in going with a muzzle loader is that it would be easier to scratchbuild a miniature lock and breech than it would be to machine an authentically scaled action. Another thought I've had is to use a Chipmunk .22 kids rifle as the basis for a Mauser or Springfield style small scale rifle. Not an exact scale model, but stylistically very similar, and shootable to boot.

Good stuff, thanks for posting that Karl! This says it all: “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people;”

If one wanted to build a small scale, say approximately 50%, working replica of a Springfield musket using a cast off Mauser barrel, what woud be a good source for the side plate/lock assembly? Are muzzle loading pistol locks scaled right, or are they about the same size as a rifle lock? The Philadelphia Derringer looks about the right size, but the shape is wrong. Could one be made from scratch? Any scale drawings available? Anybody with kids aware of a good quality die-cast toy or miniature replica that could be used as a pattern?

Let's say one were to decide to try to make a roughly half scale Springfield musket using a cast off Mauser barrel. What would be the best source of a side-plate/lock assembly? Are the pistol locks scaled down enough? The Philadelphia Derringer lock doesn't look like the right shape to pull off a close enough scaled down look. How tough would it be to reverse engineer the assembly on my Thompson Renegade and fabricate one from scratch? Anybody aware of a high quality die cast toy that could be used as a pattern? Are dimensioned drawings available?

I am reviewing some year end financial stuff, and I came across an overcharge of $45.70. The first thing I thought about was the 45-70 govt round. Last month while filling my tank at the pump I was trying to stop at $30.00 even. When I ran a couple cents over, I goosed the handle a little more until it came up 30.06. Anybody else ever catch themselves doing silly things like this, or am I just a freak?

I've got the universal kind and now I will be much more careful. I didn't have an problems on the 2 that I've done, but it wasn't because I had even considering the possibility of this happening. I guess I just didn't see the need to reef down on the bolts once it was snug enough against the flat bottom so that it wouldn't slip. I treated it like a big adjustable cresent wrench. Good to know what can go wrong though.

I've only done 2, but I found it easier to maintain control while rough grinding with a bench grinder if you have the barrel to hang on to. One hand maintains pressure and position of the action against the wheel, while the hand on the barrel rotates the whole assembly. Then for the finer work, the barrel can be clamped in the vise so the action can be filed/stoned and polished. It all depends on your set-up and personal preferences I guess.

I did not know that, thanks.

Brendan, Am I understanding correctly, that you are saying that you actually compressed the front ring of the receiver? I have a difficult time understanding how this could happen if the inside was being supported by the barrel's threaded shank when you put the wrench on.

You forgot one: Lower the crime rate by banning guns for self defense.

I know how you feel... OK, that's twice I've done this! I hit post, then the back arrow. I walk away for a while, then come back and forget if I hit post or not. Can one just delete their own post?

Checkering… She’s a cruel mistress. A heartless vixen, intolerant of any haste, impatience or lapse of attention. She can make you proud, but step out of line just briefly and she’s there to slap you back into place. Kick you in the groin, humiliate you. Like aviation, checkering is not particularly difficult, but it is very unforgiving of mistakes. Case in point, this project. It should have been a pretty simple job to extent the pattern I had started to fill in the rows mowed down in the recontouring process. I carefully redrew the border, then cut it with my veiner. I laid out some rough lines in pencil to keep me honest, then went to work. Although it looks below like I may have set myself up for failure with the veering line on the left side, I think the wrap-around distorts the actual contour of the line. I can’t blame anything I did on the lay-out. The end result on the left side is quite nice as you can see below. I have a little more work to even up the depth of the cuts and bring the diamonds up to a point, but overall I’m quite pleased. This was the second side I did… On the right side I got cocky. (did I mention she’s a cruel mistress?) Having done this before, (a little…) and having a similar wrap-around pattern on the grip area of project #2 about 90% complete in 24 LPI, I was fairly flying along with my 20 LPI three line cutter. This will be done in time to catch a bowl game this afternoon I thought. (did I mention that she’s intolerant of haste?) Then I noticed my lines starting to wander. A better man than I would have stopped and fixed things right there. I’ll just lean back the other way a little on the next few rows and get things back on track I thought. It didn’t work so well… After several more rows thing just got worse. The lines were going in the right direction, but old versus new didn’t line up. Just like the cartoon where the rails for the first meeting of the intercontinental railroad are offset by one track width. A better man might still have fixed it there, and I tried with my joiner, but alas it was too late. I should have just accepted it the way it was and kept on. Maybe when the rows going the other way are laid in it won’t be so obvious I thought. I covered up some sins on the forend this way. But no, that’s where my lapse in judgement occurred. I’ll simply “merge” two lines together and get them back that way I thought. (did I mention how she can humiliate you?) So I did this, and now it looks like crap… And I did it not once, but twice. Even after running lines back across the other way it still looks bad. I’m glad it’s a plain piece of cherry for a working rifle. If I had done this to the nice walnut I’m saving for project #3 I would have wept openly. Here’s what I created:

Yeah, it's my checkering. Thanks, I'm pretty happy with it overall although I made my share of goofs - mostly on the forend.

I'm not exactly setting the world on fire with my mauser projects and posting, but I do still tinker around whenever I get a chance. Figured it was time to post something for the crowd. My first project from several years ago has been undergoing a slow facelift as my tastes have evolved. In addition to a new welded bolt handle that Z1R did a while ago, (a Talley to replace the forged one) I have reshaped the trigger guard to remove the hole for the sling swivel. (I had already slimmed and shaped the bow somewhat) I also welded up the locking screw holes and tried to dress it up a bit, but the results are mixed. (I'll post separately on that little adventure...) After this redo of the metal work I plan to remedy my first Oxpho-blue finish with a proper rust blue, and finally complete the checkering. As well as maybe stain the stock. Again, that's a separate post. Today's post is about reshaping the tang. I wasn't hip to this the first go 'round, but I think it is a nice effect. It trims down the wrist area for my small to medium sized hands, and negates the need for an unsightly notch to allow the cocking piece sear to clear. Here's a couple photos: In the first shot you can see just how much wood stands up above the slimmed tang. It was kind of tough to take a rasp and mow down some rows of hard won checkering, but here's what it looked like after I brought the wood down to the same level. Those diamonds weren't the best anyhow and I'll get 'em back soon enough.