This gun is a Remington Speedmaster .22 cal . This one was made in 1963. It is in far worse shape than the old Mossberg I recently restored. It has a lot more rust and the stock is broken. It is also a semi-auto so there are far more pieces to deal with. Like the last gun, this one is also in throw-away condition except that the bore is clean and without rust. the receiver is aluminum and a lot of the finish is gone and there are deep scratches and some deep dents in the metal. This gun is a real disaster. The action does not cycle but I suspect that is just due to crud and dirt. Its been in my shop for a while while I worked on other gun allowing me to order a replacement stock
Here is the announcement (in 1961) for the release of the model 552 in a carbine.
I thought this ad funny and still true today.
Here are some pics of the gun in the condition it arrived at my door.
It has a tubular magazine that is also pretty rusty and the brass rod is gunked up with patina..
Lots of deep scratches and deep dents in the aluminum receiver. Some of the dents are over a 1/16 of an inch deep. This gun was abused.
The stock is broken where it meets the receiver.
As well as having a broken butt plate and missing pieces of wood.
I wonder if this is how Remington built the gun 56 years ago?
This one is going to be a real challenge but it can be saved. Once again the work begins with the wood.
As soon as I took possession of this gun, I did a search for replacement parts for the wooden stock because I knew I couldn't fix what I had. I went online to Remington's website and they had both pieces of wood (without the butt plate) for $180. (3 times as much as this gun cost new) and since I can buy a new .22 for that much, I looked elsewhere. Boyds wanted almost $100 with shipping. The gun sat in my shop until I could find a stock at a better price.
As luck would have it, I found not only both pieces of wood but also the butt plate being sold on EBay with only one day left in the auction. It was listed as a buy it now for $25 so I did. The wood was in good shape except for some scratches and finish missing so I stripped and sanded and found that it was made from hard rock Maple.
The wood will be stained with a dark American walnut stain and be given several coats of spar urethane (semi gloss). I always start with the wood because of the days of dry time.
Thi gun requires detailed inspection to see if any replacement parts need to be ordered because the action does not cycle.
To be continued……