But, again, with the thinking, I started wondering what would happen if I got a long leather thong, maybe something on the order of a leather shoelace, got it wet, then wrapped the wrist of the stock very tightly. Now, I've seen the results of some of their gun repair jobs - I have an old Smith and Wesson revolver whose disintegrating grips were wrapped with layer upon layer of friction tape. So, obviously, they would repair what they had. And back in the day, they didn't have much money, certainly not enough to buy a new stock. I considered that, but then I started thinking (and people who know me say that this is when the wheels fall off the bus.) Back when my great grandfather and grandfather were shooting these guns, they were tools, not much different from a wrench or a hammer. Obviously, one way to fix the problem is to replace the stock. I can apply up and down torque to the stock and make the cracks flex, so it's pretty clear to me that, left alone, they will get worse. They're in excellent shape, except that the stocks are beginning to crack at the wrist, from the end where the stock attaches to the breech, several inches into the wrist (they're both around a hundred years old - I'd be cracking, too.) The cracks look like they're on the surface, but with the mounting bolt that the 1897s use, there's not a tremendous amount of wood below the surface. And the stock will crack again, somewhere.I've got a nice pair of Winchester 1897s that belonged to my great grandfather. Accuracy "under every sow," as the Germans would say. The (missing) wooden buttresses take about 2/3 of the recoil load, I think the round parts of the crossbolt bearing on the edges of the holes, only about 1/3 total and that's not enough.Ī gun with the crossbolt supports gone, is going to spray bullets all over the place. The back end of the receiver was hammering the stock. The sides of the stock at the crossbolt are not visible - were those damaged? If so, that was your problem. In fact that may be why the stock broke in the first place - the entire receiver being hammered back with each shot. The crossbolt needs to be held firmly by the counterbored holes and those buttresses behind and in front. The thin sections of wood on either side of the receiver are all that's taking the recoil, and the crossbolt holes will be beaten out and split the stock very quickly. If not noticed in time, and not repaired, the recoil will quickly damage the main part of the stock, right around and behind the head of that steel crossbolt, and its round nut on the other side. But the way I do it, it involves a special jig, some finicky work on a milling machine, and fitting an appropriate laminate "dutchman" as a replacement. Missing or damaged wood buttresses are repairable. A small area means greater shear stress per unit surface area. They have a tendency to shear off and this was apparent even to the Germans when these guns were near-new. 144) had that crossbolt moved forward and the receiver forging altered and machined accordingly - to give the wooden buttresses a longer shear surface where they meet the thinner side sections of the stock. This is a known failure point, and the reason some later guns (Walther, 1945, according to Weaver, "Hitler's Garands," p. Note the wooden "supports" behind the slot for the crossbolt.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |