Restoring a neat old Mossberg

[trentatron]

Last night a good buddy of mine graduated from college, so his parents had some friends and famliy over to celebrate. His dad, knowing of my firearms habit, gave me the tour of his gun safe in the basement. Oddly enough on the far side of the basement, leaned up in a corner with a Benjamin air rifle was this Mossberg. I almost over looked it, but then noticed the "bullet door" in the stock. Long story short, this thing is crusty, rusty, and largely forgot about...it wasn't even in the gun room, much less the safe. lol When I saw the rust on it and mentioned having done some recent research on cold bluing, browning, coatings etc, he sent me home with it

It is a Mossberg S51M, the S designating Spiegel Catalog Company. These rifles were sold in the 30-40's through their mail order catalog. 

This morning I cleaned it a little, oiled it up, and got it to function. Now I've got it torn down to refinish....I took a bunch of photos, but damn I hope I can get this thing back together. I originally thought I would try to cold blue the entire gun, but considering what it is, I'm thinking I may Durablue it....not sure. The stock appears to be solid walnut, so it will just get the bumps and bruises sanded down and refinished. 

I'm always interested to hear what you guys think. I'm open to any advise or tips. Thanks!

[Ronald_55]

Nothing better than an old gun. This looks like a great project. I love to see these old rifles that families used as a daily tool brought back to life.

[seez52]

I like old Mossberg .22s I've two or three of them. Mine are all bolt actions.

If it has the plastic finger groove trigger guard be careful with it, they can get pretty brittle. On mine I just used some steel wool on the stock and some linseed oil.

[trentatron]

15 minutes ago, seez52 said:

I like old Mossberg .22s I've two or three of them. Mine are all bolt actions.

If it has the plastic finger groove trigger guard be careful with it, they can get pretty brittle. On mine I just used some steel wool on the stock and some linseed oil.

My trigger guard seems to be in good shape, and for it's age I was s little surprised that it was plastic. As far as the stock, that was pretty much my plan. Did you remove any of the old oil or finish? There will be some places on the stock that I think will require some sanding due to blemishes. The only reason I considered stripping the entire stock was to make sure that the finish was even when I applied the linseed oil. 

[seez52]

5 hours ago, trentatron said:

My trigger guard seems to be in good shape, and for it's age I was s little surprised that it was plastic. As far as the stock, that was pretty much my plan. Did you remove any of the old oil or finish? There will be some places on the stock that I think will require some sanding due to blemishes. The only reason I considered stripping the entire stock was to make sure that the finish was even when I applied the linseed oil. 

I only removed what the wool took off. I didn't use any stripper, on the walnut stock

I may have used stripper on one of them but it was a birch stock. I didn't really like the way it turned out. It needs some stain for my tastes.

[xtriggerman]

Nice old Mossy. You don't see the full stocked guns very much these days and it even still has the original rear sight! Well, from the looks of the metal, I would first just rub the hell out of all the blued area's with WD40 and 0000 steel wool. If the rusted area's are still lumped with oxidation, go to rub those areas out specifically with FLITZ. That has some very fine abrasive that if rubbed hard enough on bluing, it will lighten the blue a tad. Once all the rubbing has been wiped clean and oiled, Only then would I make a determination to sand or not sand off all the bluing and cold blue the works. You may not need nothing more than a touch up blue here and there as the pitting may not be all that deep.  Nice project tho... good luck with it.

Edited December 13, 2016 by xtriggerman

[trentatron]

14 hours ago, xtriggerman said:

I would first just rub the hell out of all the blued area's with WD40 and 0000 steel wool

Good tip, I'll try that tonight.

[trentatron]

16 hours ago, seez52 said:

I only removed what the wool took off. I didn't use any stripper, on the walnut stock

I may have used stripper on one of them but it was a birch stock. I didn't really like the way it turned out. It needs some stain for my tastes.

If I rub the stock down with wool, obviously that is going to leave some of the original finish...do we know what that was?

For example if the factory finish was linseed oil can I go back over it with tung oil, linseed, etc?

My other concern is when I sand out some of the blemishes and remove the factory finish in the process, then refinish, if I don't sand/strip the entire stock will the new finish come out even?

[xtriggerman]

21 hours ago, trentatron said:

If I rub the stock down with wool, obviously that is going to leave some of the original finish...do we know what that was?

For example if the factory finish was linseed oil can I go back over it with tung oil, linseed, etc?

My other concern is when I sand out some of the blemishes and remove the factory finish in the process, then refinish, if I don't sand/strip the entire stock will the new finish come out even?

There is no easy way here. If the stock has numerous scrapes in the stock, you can try to hump it up with 00 steel wool and go over the entire stock with your choice of finishes but no matter what you put on even if you had the original mix, you would still have a "humped up" finish job. Reason... first the wood and finish is heavily faded, break the surface of either and you get a slightly different shade with any new finish. secondly all the raw wood areas would need to be "whiskered" before finish is applied to end up with a factory smooth finish over those repair spots and whiskering requires sanding into the wood beyond the faded surface. So then there you would have depressions on every repair spot along with a bright walnut color. My suggestion to you seeing the rest of the gun, is rub the stock out with the 00 steel wool and then get your self a bottle of True Oil and target each scrape and dig with a thick blob of True oil and let that soak in and repeat until those areas are picking up a bit of a shine. That will tell you they are sealed. Lightly sand those repaired areas with 220 grit paper until you have leveled off the excess finish. Then go at the entire stock lightly with 00 steel wool, then 000 a bit more aggressively  and then apply a few "thin" hand rubbed True Oil coats. True Oil is the easiest finish to work with. It dries quickly within a day or 2 and builds fast due to its heavier viscosity than the others. To break its final coats of shine a simple go over with 0000 is all that's needed to bring it to a duller sheen.  After the first couple of rubbed coats, you will know if its what you want. Otherwise, its sand, sand, sand and whisker the entire stock and lay down a new glow to some old walnut.

[trentatron]

On 12/12/2016 at 8:57 PM, seez52 said:

I only removed what the wool took off. I didn't use any stripper, on the walnut stock

I may have used stripper on one of them but it was a birch stock. I didn't really like the way it turned out. It needs some stain for my tastes.

 

On 12/12/2016 at 11:18 PM, xtriggerman said:

Nice old Mossy. You don't see the full stocked guns very much these days and it even still has the original rear sight! Well, from the looks of the metal, I would first just rub the hell out of all the blued area's with WD40 and 0000 steel wool. If the rusted area's are still lumped with oxidation, go to rub those areas out specifically with FLITZ. That has some very fine abrasive that if rubbed hard enough on bluing, it will lighten the blue a tad. Once all the rubbing has been wiped clean and oiled, Only then would I make a determination to sand or not sand off all the bluing and cold blue the works. You may not need nothing more than a touch up blue here and there as the pitting may not be all that deep.  Nice project tho... good luck with it.

Thank you both for your advice. A little steel wool, WD40, mineral spirits and elbow grease. Every part of this rifle got degreased, scrubbed with WD40 and 0000 steel wool, then oiled and sat aside to soak the oil in. 

On the stock, I buffed it with steel wool followed by mineral spirits. Here are my final results...

At the end of the day, as bad as I wanted to strip both the metal and wood down to totally refinish them, I'll wait until I get a real turd rifle, this one has too much original finish left on it. 

Thanks to you all for the advice, this was a great little project. I definitely won't be so quick to over look old .22's when I see them at pawn shops or gun shows.

 

Edited December 16, 2016 by trentatron

[KahrMan]

Looks great.  It is amazing what a little elbow grease and the right tools can do to bring back a finish.

Nice work!

[graycrait]

Always interesting to learn a little more about certain models of Mossbergs

http://home.epix.net/~damguy/

 

If you ever need a part call havlins even if they don't have it on their website. 

https://www.havlinsales.com/

Then there is always Numrich:  https://www.gunpartscorp.com/

And if all else fails:  https://jack-first-gun-parts.myshopify.com/

 

If you ever have a real question someone on this forum will probably have the answer or a resource.

http://www.rimfirecentral.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=51

 

 

[trentatron]

21 minutes ago, graycrait said:

Always interesting to learn a little more about certain models of Mossbergs

http://home.epix.net/~damguy/

 

If you ever need a part call havlins even if they don't have it on their website. 

https://www.havlinsales.com/

Then there is always Numrich:  https://www.gunpartscorp.com/

And if all else fails:  https://jack-first-gun-parts.myshopify.com/

 

If you ever have a real question someone on this forum will probably have the answer or a resource.

http://www.rimfirecentral.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=51

Thanks for the pointers! I actually joined rimfirecentral.com a few days ago, great resource there!

 

 

[seez52]

great job! I like a little character left it shows that gun has some history. Mossbergs are great little rifles and are absolute tack drivers. I have a military version (42M I think) it's about my favorite .22, with the full length stock like yours. It has a peep sight and it will about out shoot anything out there. When I was a kid my best friend had a Mossberg auto loader I think it was just like yours. I know it had the full length stock. We used to wander in the woods all day shooting it back when 22 ammo was 99 cents a box.

[xtriggerman]

^  I agree w/ all the above. On a lot of old guns its a plus to have some "been their done that" on em! Good work.

[seez52]

On 12/16/2016 at 8:18 AM, trentatron said:

 

Thank you both for your advice. A little steel wool, WD40, mineral spirits and elbow grease. Every part of this rifle got degreased, scrubbed with WD40 and 0000 steel wool, then oiled and sat aside to soak the oil in. 

On the stock, I buffed it with steel wool followed by mineral spirits. Here are my final results...

At the end of the day, as bad as I wanted to strip both the metal and wood down to totally refinish them, I'll wait until I get a real turd rifle, this one has too much original finish left on it. 

Thanks to you all for the advice, this was a great little project. I definitely won't be so quick to over look old .22's when I see them at pawn shops or gun shows.

 

Does your gun say 22LR only? For some reason I seem to remember Mossberg offered an autoloader that could shoot shorts and longs even though you had to manually cycle them. Seems like there was a setting on the bolt or something.

[Quavodus]

You did a great job cleaning it up. Nice rifle.

[runco]

Great job.

My father is self taught at bringing back to life old guns.  I have seen a many of guns that most people would just throw away, give away, etc., that he has taken apart, cleaned, cold blue and etc.  When I say many, maybe 50+ in my life.  Almost all shotguns and 22LR rifles.  Broken stocks he stays away from, but rust, he loves rust.

[Grand Torino]

You did a great job....looks terrific.