Hawken Project

[Spitfire1]

Oh sorry my bad the .58 ball does come in at around 280gr , recoil will be brisk with a light rifle and 110 gr !

 

[exMember]

got a great start on the " thumb hook" on the hawken stock, had to find a tool to wrap the sand paper around and get the shape started, after that, just feathering it in with 100 grit to smooth is all out. I didn't over do, when the stain is on, it should be a nice gentle flow with the stock.

Now that im using finer sand paper, the wood grain is really jumping out, i dont think i will do a very heavy stain on it, i just want to get that figure to pop.

 

[exMember]

 

[Spitfire1]

Looking real nice Jon !

 

[exMember]

well I got all my parts in today. The only thing that turned out to be junk was the brass wedge key plate Screws. I snapped 3 heads off before i said to hell with it, just buy some steel screws at the store.

Got to get that darned dovetail cut and order sights!

 

[Spitfire1]

Yeah some of the screws that come with these repro guns are really crap ! I stripped two rear sight screws before they were snug....

 

[Muley Hunter]

Coating them with paraffin helps going into wood.

 

[Spitfire1]

I normally coat the wood screws with wax but i stripped the one going into steel , without forcing them i might add !

 

[exMember]

they went in easy, some just snapped off barely getting into the wood. Brass sucks!

 

[Spitfire1]

When insertning brass screws i normally drill a hole the size of the screws shank to ease intallation.

 

[Muley Hunter]

Jon is right. Brass screws are a dumb idea.

 

[Spitfire1]

Pete i don't know why they use brass furniture on the repro guns as the most of the originals used steel...?

 

[Muley Hunter]

Especially, the Hawkens. Very few were made with any brass, and patch boxes were rare too. Special order stuff.

 

[Spitfire1]

All my original pommy guns have steel furniture as well

 

[exMember]

leaves you with a real gut sinking feeling when you go to apply torque and SNAP! LOL. Luckily the patch box screws were steel!

 

[Spitfire1]

Know what you mean Jon , had that same feeling when changing out the rear sight on my Hawken and stripped the screws . Funny enough nothing happened to the thread in the holes , only stripped the male thread.

 

[exMember]

Started using birchwood casey perma blue and its doing great so far! Its slow, but the more time you take to clean and buff the barrel after each coat, the better it looks! No streaking at all. Not sure yet how dark I will go, so only time will tell.

 

[exMember]

Rubbed back the black to a purdy very very dark gray/light black worn blued color. Came out very smooth. I think the streaks some folks have mentioned comes from the prep work on the steel. If there are deeper scratches here and there, thats going to show up through the color.

 

[Spitfire1]

Did you polish with steelwool Jon ?

 

[Muley Hunter]

Picture is too dark to see. That's not like you.