Log In
Members
Home
Add Reply
Add Topic
Offline
I notice in my pursuit for more lever guns, that more than I would have though was a fair share of Model 94’s in the 1940-1964 period have poor metal to wood fit at the tang in particular. I like to be able to run my thumb or finger across the tang and wood and not feel the join or a transition. I have seen a couple of nice guns but one was probably a mm from being flush. At the risk of asking perhaps a dumb question is this a big deal in what otherwise would be a very desirable gun. How does this imperfection affect the value and collectivity of the rifle.
I always look/feel for wood that is slightly proud to the metal….anything different and I suspect the stocks may have been refinished.
Even a properly cured stock can shrink given the right climate. I made a table for my brother out of Kiln dried Pine. The table was built by taking 1.5" x 2" strips of the pin and every 12" drilling a hole through it. The table was assembled like a glue lam with a 1/2" all thread running through the holes every 12" down the length of the table top this was then tightened to about 80ftlbs with Nuts on both ends of the all thread. I used enough Titebond II glue on each surface to completely wet the boards.
5 years in Western Oregon the table was beautiful.
Lil Bro moves to SE AZ and in less then 30 days the table shrank up so much as to cause a 1/2 wide crack to develop in the middle of the top it runs the full length.
That’s 1/2" of shrinkage across 36" of wood.
Thanks for those comments. I am in Arizona and I brushed on this issue in an earlier post about storage of my guns here in Arizona. I also have a stack of guitars and run a humidifier 24/7. I lost a vintage dobro guitar many years ago soon after I moved over here from Australia because of the extreme dry heat here and dont want any more issues with them or of course my firearms. The 94 I was looking at purchasing is from Nevada which has a very similar climate to AZ so this one may well have been a victim of shrinkage. The guy assured me the gun is totally original and I have no reason to doubt him but I only have a bunch of photos and one showed the wood quite proud of the tang.
While I was typing this reply and looked at some blogs about guns and moisture and they all are worried about taking the moisture out of their safes but here I have the opposite to worry about. I guess the bright side here is rust isnt really an issue, Any way I will keep running this humidifier and keep an eye on things very regularly. Thx again
1 Guest(s)
