Hammerli 403 Restorations

[nutbushuk]

Hi Chaps

Having bought a Sig hammerli 401 when I was a teenager 30 years ago, I have always had a thing about this make, so it was nice to recently make contact with Alistair (Hsing-ee) after joining this BBS and do a good deal with him on an old Sig Hammerli 403 for spares or repair, now I’m not flushed with cash right now (thanks Mr Brown) and I love fixing things up so this is going to be a long restoration project and I thought I would share with you the progress on this 30year old rifle.

Wood work
When receive the stock had been treated with a colour lacquer part of which stripped off with the packaging it was received in, this example also was poorly inletted the action sitting quite proud of the stock.

First job was to strip the stock wood (Beech) and sand back to bear wood, did this with wet and dry used wet, this severely raised the grain but cut through the scratch’s very quickly and got all the finish off, then using a soldering iron and a wet cloth steamed out all the dents in the stock, and when thoroughly dry finished sanded with 220 oxide paper to smooth finish.
http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/m.../Barestock.jpg
http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/m...barestock2.jpg

I like the spirit based wood stains so initially tried an American walnut stain, didn’t like it, too black and patchy, so nothing for it so sanded it all off again. Did some research and this time pre-treated the wood with 1 part boiled linseed oil to 20 parts mineral (white) spirits, and then stained 24 hour later with a deep mahogany, rubbed a lot of the dye off before it was fully dry to keep the stock fairly light, I was looking for that old wood look, it has now had its first coat of linseed and to my eye its starting to look good, about five more coats to go I think, I also think that this finish will darken naturally with time and light exposure.
I also sanded the rubber butt plate which had gone shiny and wet sanded the plastic but plate and repolished.
http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/m...huk/Stock1.jpg
http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/m...shedstock1.jpg
http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/m...Inletting1.jpg

Next instalment Metal work, got some knackered internals to fix, I shall be replacing the spring with an original, an HW77 will fit but this is a target gun and I want to keep the power down, the old spring had done its service and had more kinks in it than is healthy,.
http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/m...huk/Spring.jpg

I shall also be making a replacement spring guide out of Nylon, several bits of the original were floating around in the spring. May also make a Nylon top hat to go in the piston.
http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/m...pringguide.jpg

I shall also be modifying the piston to take a PU seal from an HW77 as half the screw holding the old leather seal had broken off and embedded itself in the nylon buffer and leather seal, I already did this on my 401 some years ago and it works very well.
http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/m...Pistonhead.jpg

Amazingly before I stripped it and despite all of the above the rifle fired very well for a 30 year old gun keeping tight groups at ten metres

My final bit of work will be to regrind the barrel sleeve to put a uniform finish on it and re-polish all metal work in prep for bluing, I am hoping to re-blue the gun myself, I would very much like to build my own kit for hot bluing with bluing salts (sodium nitrate) but that’s not something to be done lightly so I may end up finding some cash to get it done professionally.

Thanks to Alistair for giving me something to play with!

I shall update as progress is made.

TTFN

[nutbushuk]

Oooops forgot to say that I also recut the inletting with my trusty chisels, unfortunately I didn’t take a before pic, but before metalwork at the back was 2mm proud of the woodwork and flush at barrel end, not same high quality of my 401.

[nutbushuk]

First job was to strip the stock wood (Beech) and sand back to bear wood, did this with wet and dry used wet, this severely raised the grain but cut

Cant belive I said "bear" wood instead of "bare" wood, what was I thinking!
Ill be getting questions next like "where do you get wood made from bears", or "how dare you make a gun stock out of endangered bears wood" or "How do the bears get wood in the first place"

Bang goes my journo career

[Garvin]

What a brilliant job you've made of that stock. Fantastic.

[Hsing-ee]

Blimey is that the same gun I sold you? Great work. Gotr another one for you later ....

[leinad]

great job, Could you attach pics of the transformation seal?