Yet another fine example of a beautifully made gun damaged by so-called "professionals". As always, I won't mention any names (you'd know them and probably wouldn't believe me anyway).
It came in with: a failed ejector spring, a failed mainspring, sears that would not hold the hammers cocked, damaged screws and some of the worst stock modification and finishing I'd ever seen. The failed springs were no one's fault but that can't be said for the rest of the damage.
The right-side hammer pivot screw was damaged. Since this damage would hinder the hammer's proper movement, it was the first item that needed to be corrected. I made (from O1), fitted and engraved the new screw, then heat-treated and finished it to match the frame. With this done, I could move on to correcting the situation with the sears, which we will come to presently.
Now, on to the sears. Unfortunately, there are still those that believe that all steels can be welded. Also unfortunately, they're still wrong. It seems that the gun had been the victim of someone's idea of "trigger pull tuning" at some point, and this did not go quite as planned. Someone else's idea of a fix was to weld up the sear noses, which, unsurprisingly failed. To wit:
The correct solution? New sears, made from O1 and properly heat treated.
Now that the hammers and sears are interacting correctly, I can move on to making springs. I've more than adequately documented in these pages how a spring is made, so I will not do so here.
The right-side mainspring...
The left-side ejector spring...
The triggerplate screws were so overtorqued, their slots no longer aligned when tightened (overtightening stretches the threaded shank of the screw). The fix? You guessed it, new screws. I made these from 1018 and case hardened, then polished them after I engraved the heads. 1018 engraves much easier than the O1 that I used for the hammer pivot, which was necessary in that instance.
That left the stock and forend to take care of. I took no photos of the heinous machinations that had been visited upon the wood but, the work to correct it was extensive and, obviously necessitated refinishing the butt and forend in their entirety. The checkering was recut after finishing. The customer also requested a leather-covered recoil pad, in black pigskin.
