I thought I would be the first to post up a couple of pictures of a letter gun. I know Adam has/had some prettier ones, and thought this might provoke him to post them up. I picked this up from Classic Firearms last year on one of the sales they had. It is the only all matching letter gun that I have. The bluing is pretty good, but I am pretty sure it had been drug behind a truck before it made it state side.
Here is how she arrived.
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/bbush44/F3823/20140211_143916.jpg) (http://s3.photobucket.com/user/bbush44/media/F3823/20140211_143916.jpg.html)
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/bbush44/F3823/20140211_144002.jpg) (http://s3.photobucket.com/user/bbush44/media/F3823/20140211_144002.jpg.html)
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/bbush44/F3823/20140211_144123.jpg) (http://s3.photobucket.com/user/bbush44/media/F3823/20140211_144123.jpg.html)
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/bbush44/F3823/20140211_144200.jpg) (http://s3.photobucket.com/user/bbush44/media/F3823/20140211_144200.jpg.html)
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/bbush44/F3823/20140211_144211.jpg) (http://s3.photobucket.com/user/bbush44/media/F3823/20140211_144211.jpg.html)
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/bbush44/F3823/20140211_144257.jpg) (http://s3.photobucket.com/user/bbush44/media/F3823/20140211_144257.jpg.html)
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/bbush44/F3823/20140211_144325.jpg) (http://s3.photobucket.com/user/bbush44/media/F3823/20140211_144325.jpg.html)
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/bbush44/F3823/20140211_144409.jpg) (http://s3.photobucket.com/user/bbush44/media/F3823/20140211_144409.jpg.html)
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/bbush44/F3823/20140211_144451.jpg) (http://s3.photobucket.com/user/bbush44/media/F3823/20140211_144451.jpg.html)
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/bbush44/F3823/20140211_144459.jpg) (http://s3.photobucket.com/user/bbush44/media/F3823/20140211_144459.jpg.html)
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/bbush44/F3823/20140211_144507.jpg) (http://s3.photobucket.com/user/bbush44/media/F3823/20140211_144507.jpg.html)
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/bbush44/F3823/20140211_144513.jpg) (http://s3.photobucket.com/user/bbush44/media/F3823/20140211_144513.jpg.html)
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/bbush44/F3823/20140211_144908.jpg) (http://s3.photobucket.com/user/bbush44/media/F3823/20140211_144908.jpg.html)
I cleaned her all up, and tried Tung oil, instead of BLO on the stock. I'm still :-\ on the outcome.
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/bbush44/F3823/20140312_182056.jpg) (http://s3.photobucket.com/user/bbush44/media/F3823/20140312_182056.jpg.html)
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/bbush44/F3823/20140312_182109.jpg) (http://s3.photobucket.com/user/bbush44/media/F3823/20140312_182109.jpg.html)
Is that a bullet hole? Or where it hit a a large rock on one of its trips down a gravel road?
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/bbush44/F3823/20140312_182124.jpg) (http://s3.photobucket.com/user/bbush44/media/F3823/20140312_182124.jpg.html)
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/bbush44/F3823/20140312_182157.jpg) (http://s3.photobucket.com/user/bbush44/media/F3823/20140312_182157.jpg.html)
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/bbush44/F3823/20140312_181906.jpg) (http://s3.photobucket.com/user/bbush44/media/F3823/20140312_181906.jpg.html)
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/bbush44/F3823/20140312_181923.jpg) (http://s3.photobucket.com/user/bbush44/media/F3823/20140312_181923.jpg.html)
I apologize for the crappy pictures, but it is all I currently have of her. She now wears a Chinese coil sling, and shoots well.
Those dings give it character in my humble opinion, it good looking! Better pictures than mine. Thanks for sharing Brian
Ooooo I like the looks of that one. 8)
That stock has some neat grain lines on it Brian. I don't think I'd ever seen it all cleaned up; it came out pretty decent with the Tung oil, if not a bit light for my tastes.
I still have yet to get a letter gun at all from this new batch, I have a 188k Ghost, six digit /26\, and 2x 2 mil /26\s. I'd like to get a nice 3 mil /26\ CAI gun (with a side swivel maybe) and then a nice IO or TGI letter prefix to round out the early Chinese collection.
I agree RM, It is a bit light for my tastes also. I only have one other Letter gun, but it is a bit of a mix matcher.
After the stock was decosmoed.
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/bbush44/F3823/20140212_231914.jpg) (http://s3.photobucket.com/user/bbush44/media/F3823/20140212_231914.jpg.html)
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/bbush44/F3823/20140212_232029.jpg) (http://s3.photobucket.com/user/bbush44/media/F3823/20140212_232029.jpg.html)
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/bbush44/F3823/20140212_232050.jpg) (http://s3.photobucket.com/user/bbush44/media/F3823/20140212_232050.jpg.html)
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/bbush44/F3823/20140212_231948.jpg) (http://s3.photobucket.com/user/bbush44/media/F3823/20140212_231948.jpg.html)
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/bbush44/F3823/20140212_231905.jpg) (http://s3.photobucket.com/user/bbush44/media/F3823/20140212_231905.jpg.html)
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/bbush44/F3823/20140212_231853.jpg) (http://s3.photobucket.com/user/bbush44/media/F3823/20140212_231853.jpg.html)
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/bbush44/F3823/20140212_231840.jpg) (http://s3.photobucket.com/user/bbush44/media/F3823/20140212_231840.jpg.html)
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/bbush44/F3823/20140212_231938.jpg) (http://s3.photobucket.com/user/bbush44/media/F3823/20140212_231938.jpg.html)
Not bad at all! The only way to get that stock looking nicer would to heavily sand it and remove the dings. I had a 'ghost' with a similar crappy stock that I redid, after some heavy sanding it came out nice.
(http://i1273.photobucket.com/albums/y419/fiscallyagile/CAED644D-655B-487D-B289-E9CEA72EF8AA_zpseyhp5cd9.jpg)
Now I know a lot of folks will say 'don't sand!!' And I was once of that same thought as well... But my opinion has changed now that I have refinished my fair share of stocks. If your already making it 'other then issued' by refinishing it, I say heck, go all the way. At least when your done it more closely resembles how it originally was made.
I might show off a few of my letter guns when I get the chance. I have 1 in particular that is absolutely beautiful. I haven't and don't need to touch the stock on it. The majority of my early Chinese rifles have had similar stocks to the one you show here.
Adam! Show your letter guns! IIRC you were thinking of collecting all of them at one point. How many you have?
As you can probably tell I did very little sanding. I just knocked off the rough edges with some 150 grit. Most of the spots on the stock are so deep and cover a large area I would have had to sand the stock down to a tooth pick to get them all out. After taking some denatured alcohol and removing what little of finish remained all of the scars kind of grew on me. So I just left them be.
I did refinish a couple of the extra stocks I picked up off ebay from buymilsup.
Before
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/bbush44/Replacement%20RTI%20Stock/Buymilsurp%20stocks/Stock%202/20140317_123234.jpg) (http://s3.photobucket.com/user/bbush44/media/Replacement%20RTI%20Stock/Buymilsurp%20stocks/Stock%202/20140317_123234.jpg.html)
After
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/bbush44/Replacement%20RTI%20Stock/Buymilsurp%20stocks/Stock%202/20140902_120943.jpg) (http://s3.photobucket.com/user/bbush44/media/Replacement%20RTI%20Stock/Buymilsurp%20stocks/Stock%202/20140902_120943.jpg.html)
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/bbush44/Replacement%20RTI%20Stock/Buymilsurp%20stocks/Stock%202/20140902_121010.jpg) (http://s3.photobucket.com/user/bbush44/media/Replacement%20RTI%20Stock/Buymilsurp%20stocks/Stock%202/20140902_121010.jpg.html)
If I screwed one of these up, at least it wasn't a matching stock. ;D
I agree with Worm post up your Letter guns.
Brian
wow nice job with that stock bbush
No doubt, that does look good.
I love the just drug behind a truck look, turned out nice bbush!
Wow, it seems they have it in for the F's! At least yours made me feel better about mine... :))
I have one made 3600 before yours; it, too looks like it fought off a killer robot attack in hand to claw combat. And it's MY only matching letter Chinese as well! (I do have one with a replacement stock on it, but it came in a renumbered replacement stock to begin with.
I can't decide on fix, love, or sell, TBH...
(http://i694.photobucket.com/albums/vv305/Stoned_Oli/Pri%20Vat/Ruff.jpg)
Yours on the other hand, much improved... and I bet she cuddles better too... ;)
Purdy Brain, you did good my friend.
Guns with character like these really make you wish you knew what experience they have seen. I doubt it was anything involving clumsy teenage girls from the drill team, although it almost looks like it in some cases. Nice restorations guys, color me jealous.
The closest I have had to these is my T53, the ugliest gun I own, but sitting next to my excellent condition SKS's she looks like a well seasoned woman in a harem of virgins.
Fortunately, I like both. wink1