I'm a very happy little teddy bear!

[LESS THAN FORTUITOUS KENNETH]

A few weeks ago, I bought an old Original 45 off PJ on here. Mien gott, it was rough. The action had seen better days. It was covered in thick gunk, but thankfully no pitting. The stock looked like it had been thickly daubed with some kind of plastic window paint. It looked and felt like toffee. I decided to have the action reblued by Colin Molloy, and what a superb job he did! It looks mint, just like it left the factory. The trigger was absolutely pants. No feel to it whatsoever. So commence I did to strip it down. All the stuff on the interweb said it was quite a difficult gun to work on. I didn't find it so, or I'm more skillful than I give myself credit for. . I was very surprised to find that the internals were like new and didn't seem like they would need over much doing with them. The leather piston seal was spot on. Sod all wear and nice and supple.

All the action was stripped to individual bits, given a quick clean, and sent off to Colin to perform his magic. I gave the trigger unit a good soak and a clean with a toothbrush. I've never seen as much gunge come out of it. Dried it and gave it a light oiling where need be. I also found the trigger spring was a bit hefty, so I replaced it with a weaker one out of my box of tricks, and it feels miles better. Played about with it out of the gun quite a bit to to get it where I thought a good starting point would be on reassembly. The spring was like new so I decided it did not need replacing, just polished the ends. The guide fit was sloppy, so I rectified that. The spring was also sloppy inside the piston. Even though these guns have a piston liner, I made another to fit inside the original to tighten things up.

The stock was stripped with a hot air gun and then sanded down and finished with 0000 wire wool. Quite a plain stock with very little figuring, even for beech. You can't win 'em all! It got about 8 coats of Danlsh, wire wooling between coats, and finished off with Rydnor waxwing wax. I like this stuff because it doesn't fingermark easily when buffed up.

The action arrived back yesterday afternoon, so it was game on. First job was to give the barrel a really good clean. Going on what the outside of the gun was like, I thought it best to do it. Got most of it assembled last night. Again, articles on the web say it's a difficult gun to work on, but I didn't find it so. They say it needs a spring compressor, but I managed it quite easily without one. Not much preload on it TBH. Getting the cocking shoe in is awkward, but got it on the third time of asking. Getting the pins through the safety is tricky too. I found that just getting the rear pin in first, then pulling the safety back, opened the front end of the spring to make getting the front pin in easier.

All assembled and action fitted back in stock. Everything working as it should. Even though I only lubed very lightly, it deiselled like buggery, worst I've ever seen, for the first ten or so shots and then, just like turning a tap off, it stopped. Chrono time. The first few shots while dieselling were all over the shop. When it stopped, the results were excellent. 597 +/- 3 ft/sec. 11.48 fpe with superdomes. These guns are renowned for twang, but there is non at all, so the tighter guide and extra piston sleeve seem to have done their job. Recoil is almost non existent. On a par with my tuned TX and LGV. I was expecting the trigger to still be a bit to be desired, but no. A solid stop at the end of the first stage and a very light, clean, crisp let off.

That's probably bored you all to tears, but I had to share it because I'm so ******* happy! I'll try to get some pics up later. Wish I had taken some "before " pictures so you could appreciate the transformation better.