Neanderpundit

Does little to stem the tide of my hibernation instinct. Nearly had the Oglet to school late today, and I was myself late arriving at the orifice. The rain doesn’t help either.

Saturday we looked at a remington 1895 double, a 12 gauge in really beautiful shape, with ejectors. it was $250.

I’m not as afraid of shooting Damascus barrels as others, and these were in pristine condition, with wonderfully smooth and clean bores. The pattern was also spectacular. I couldn’t confirm if the ejectors worked because they didn’t have a pair of 12 gauge snapcaps.

I have to tell you, I lusted after it. And then I thought about the lefever in the cabinet back home.

Dad’s shotgun, the 20 I bought for him all those years ago. metal great, stock OK but not great. So I though, rather than add a shotgun to my already burgeoning collection I would put mine back right. I ordered new wood from Gunstocks inc, and last night I disassembled the action to confirm it’s function. This generation of LeFever is actually ithaca, which is a well made middle of the road gun. I intend to spend some time making the mechanicals perfect, and I will go on from there. I may post youtube video, I may just post some pictures of the work I do to it to get it functional.

the damnedest things happen to you.

I was walking around the SHOT show and came on the little group of booths that represent the consortium of the midline Italian makers- Uberti, Pedersoli, Chiappa, Sabatti. I wandered in to drool at the new Sabatti doubles and a voice over my shoulder says “Do you have any questions I can answer for you?” and I turn to face Gabriele Sabatti.

What a lovely man. I told him of my love for my 45-70, and told him that I wanted a 500 nitro with a set of interchangeable barrels in 20 gauge. He winced involuntarily. You see, it seems that when he put the contract together with Cabelas to sell the line of rifles in the US, he was told they would have to take a production rifle in 500 nitro and shoot 250 rounds through it before Cabelas would touch it. So he told his shooter, who said “no!”

So Gabriele Sabatti himself took a 500 nitro out back and put 250 rounds through it. “260, actually” he said, because Kynoch sells them in boxes of 20.

he told me that the 45-70 is the same forging and action as the heavier guns, and that the barrels are hard soldered, so I should have no issue using hard solids. he said the 8mm and 30-06 barrels were soft soldered so they could not bear solids long term. So I’m going to look at some of those barnes solids, work up some loads this summer, and see how much trouble I should be able to generate. Look for sore shoulders. (grin)

I have always been a big fan of the Savage 99. I consider it to be the pinnacle of sporting levergun design, and  one of the loveliest, to my eye. And it came in such a variety of calibers, though sadly, none of them are currently deer legal in Indiana.

It is my opinion that the 99 represents the Savage high water mark, a very nice rifle that showed the world the capabilities of Savage. Since then they have sort of become the company of beechwood and plastic stocked Walmart rifles. Sure, they’re great shooters and any rifle is better than no rifle, but never since have they made better engineered nor prettier guns.

 

 

 

So it gives me some pause to find a very nice rifle in great condition that has been treated in this way.

I have to presume that the individual who did this may have taken his cue from the old Daisy Buck Jones rifle made famous by Jean Shepherd, but the Daisy rifle was made out of stamped sheet metal and brass, and the Savage is casehardened tool steel- a LOT of it. I assume the guy set the compass down on the stock to decide where he wanted it. He had to mark the place where he would drill the hole.  

 

You would have thought, that one time in that whole process, he would notice that the compass always points to the receiver.