# Marauder Restyle Part Duex



## Sharps40 (Aug 27, 2013)

After acquiring a 1967 RC with perfect bore but busted stock busted sight and surface rust on the outside......Marauder Time again.

A change up from the first project.....barrel will finish out the same 17"ish length so as not to be confused with a real Marauder but I'll place the barrel band close to the muzzle and the barrel sight to the rear of the band, just like the original Marauders.  

Here we go....

Cut about 3" off the end of the barrel and then use a piloted face cutter to square the end of the barrel to the bore...







As you can see, a perfectly smooth and square face to start the crown from, plenty accurate, good as new on a bore with sharp, crisp undamaged rifling.






Switch to the smaller 11 degree target crown cutter and make the recess to protect the rifling at the muzzle from the inevitable dings and dents, preserving the accuracy for a long time to come.






The finished crown.  With good cutters, piloted and a steady hand and a bit of oil, no final polish needed.  Smooth as a babies butt and it'll crap bullets with satisfying accuracy all day long.






I usually cut off the back of the mag tube....I'm goin full Marauder look this time, so off comes the unsightly and unneeded barrel band screw slot as I cut off the front end.  This will allow me to restyle the gun, band forward, sight back and no ugly cut out showing midway between the barrel band and forend.  Just a little detail, but its a good look/right look/workmanship to strive for.


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## Sharps40 (Aug 27, 2013)

How much to shorten the mag spring?  I never shorten it initially more than the 3" I cut from the mag tube....leaves me a plenty stiff mag spring, and should finish up with a final capacity of 5 170g loads in the mag and 1 in the pipe for a true Six Shooter....more than sufficient to stack up 6 late evening does w/o reload on the food plot.

Measure, and, Clip.






The factory forend is too ugly long for the 20" barrel...so, off comes its snout for the new 17"ish barrel....leave about 1/8" or so of wood beyond the barrel band and square it up later during the refinish.  Good walnut on this marlin forend, too bad the stock is broken...but I should be able to reuse the buttplate and hopefully, the undamaged bullseye in the belly of the stock.






For reference, initial reassembly to check the look.  Also, to the right, the parts removed from the snout to make a 336 into a world class fast Bush Stalker and deadly accurate 150m cornfield sniper...






A look at the barrel assembly, lacking a bit of fitting of the band and cross bolt and I'll add the front sight groove soon....






A nice look, just over half the forend is wood and the rest is blued steel...pretty.   Now, when the straight grip stock gets here I'll convert the lower tang from pistol grip to straight configuration and coax that silly bent lever into proper straight shape.  Marlin was smart in 63 and 64.  They copied the Win 94 grip and lever shape for the Marauder!  That's funny there, Winchester shape on a Marlin Lever.   Maybe I can sneak a Win part into this conversion too, just like the last one!


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## Sharps40 (Aug 27, 2013)

Select a location for the front sight dovetail, behind the location of the barrel/tube band...just like the original Marauders.

Install a 3/8 dovetail cutter and approach with confidence or hire out the job but ya gotta level the jig to the action, clamp the jig and cut the barrel dovetail with a hacksaw and files.  Off we go, its level or I ain't worth a - I AM A POTTY MOUTH -- I AM A POTTY MOUTH -- I AM A POTTY MOUTH -- I AM A POTTY MOUTH -.






No going back, I carved out as much metal as possible with the hacksaw, hardened jig makes the blade sing when I hit the bottom....keeps it from being too deep or too wide...its gonna be perfect and straight.






Clean up the floor of the dovetail and the undercuts, jig in place with files....when they sing, ye've bottomed out.






Checking the fit and position with a try sight...see, dead nuts straight up and down...its perfect and I am Justin Wilson, Hoo Weee, that's Hot!


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## Sharps40 (Aug 27, 2013)

The deer end...straight sight, good crown, deadly combo...






Pretty good this way too.






Looks fine from here too..






And there, close as I can make it w/o shortening up the wood any further, a Marauder styled front end....It'll fool ya but not a collector... length, etc, all close for the look but no way it'll pass the Serial number test or barrel length, etc....a Marauder Styled Carbine and ya can shoot it instead of collecting it.  A much better place to be.


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## hayseed_theology (Aug 27, 2013)

Looking good already!


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## Sharps40 (Aug 28, 2013)

Gotta loosen up the front band, just a touch.  When moving these bands far back on the barrel, I open top and bottom to releave tension on the barrel and mag tube for better accuracy.  For this set up, much less grinding is required to achieve the relief and so, I only open the lower loop.  That will allow me to slide the mag tube in and out once I remove the cross bolt.

A dremil tool and a stone makes fast work of relieving the lower loop.






The front barrel band needs a cross slot, part in the barrel, part in the mag tube.  Install the mag tube, tape it tight and secure to the rear.  Install the barrel band where I want itshim between mag and barrel to secure the parts.  Mark with a small drill bit, and either drill thru with 1/8 or 9-64 bit or hand file the grooves with round files by hand.  Either way, hand fitting is required to finish the fit to get it snug when the barrel band screw is snugged down.






Roughin in the grooves for the cross bolt.  Best fit is a slight interference fit when installed and pulling the band together tight to secure it all....






Of course, Marlin switched to a large dia screw here cause the little ones always strip out...this one is stripped out....I'll replace it with the next size up screw using a socket head instead of a slotted tip.






Make a new hole in the end to install the bolt that holds the mag tube cap in place in the end of the tube.






Test reassembled again, mag tube cap screw is neatly hidden under the barrel band for a cleaner look.  A new larger diameter cross bolt to replace the lightweight factory crossbolt that stripped out like every other one on the old Marlins..... not bad, trim the screw, polish and blue, it'll be rock solid, clean and smooth looking and very functional.






That's it for tonight.   Gotta order a stock for this dude now.  Guess I might as well start inspecting guts and getting the rest of it cleaned up and ready for wood work and bluing.


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## cmshoot (Aug 29, 2013)

Outstanding!


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## Sharps40 (Aug 29, 2013)

Everything is in place for a test fire before going any further.  But, that'll prolly mean some elmers on the broken stock and duct tape to secure it for a few shots.  I want to be sure all the internals are working smooth and correctly before going any further with the pretties.

For now, contouring the front band to allow for either a wide or narrow barrel mounted sight. 







This is a wide base barrel sight.  I think it looks great.  Fills the entire dovetail groove and sits nice over the barrel.  A narrower base front sight would allow for some windage adjustment but I'm predicting the barrel is straight and I won't need to skew the sights off center by much if any.






Another shot of the business end of this sight.....not sure if it'll be this one or a green one or even a taller or shorter one but I think I like this look on the front.  Now where did I put that Winchester 94 rear sight??.....


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## Sharps40 (Sep 10, 2013)

Finally, parts and supplies have arrived so I can dive into the Marauder Part Deux and get started on that TC Renegade Refinish!

Here we go...Winchester 1886 on a Marlin 336...straight grip conversion coming so this Marlin will emulate the perfection of the Win 94 both in sighting and in handling, one day soon.  






New walnut, straight grain for strength with some lovely golds, reds and greens...gonna look darn fine when hand rubbed to satin perfection.











This is what I like to see, interference fit from the word go...room to fit it snug and no glass bedding should be needed...we'll even have to drill it for the tang screw.
















Yeah baby, gonna look sweet and shoot sweet and handle sweet and be way better than it was from the factory....back to 1963.


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## Sharps40 (Sep 12, 2013)

Going well...stock is rough fitted.  Want this one to come along to a point where I'm refinishing wood so I can simultaneously fit metal parts on the separate Renegade project and then polish both for simultaneous bluing.  But it may or may not happen that way.  In any event, no hurry on either of these projects.

This is a well done preinlet stock for the marlin.  The only fitting was a whisker here and there inside the inletting and shaping the wood tangs that fit inside the action panels...and a lil recess down low in the rear to clearance the mainspring shaft.






Here I've scribed the line on the lower tang where metal will be removed to facilitate the straight grip conversion.  This effectively reproduces the marlin Texan tang.  There will be no loss of thread for the stock screw.






The factory inletting leaves a very slight gap at the action panels, no worries, its at least as tight as the factory Marlin fit, so I'm pretty happy with the fit and the look will be as folks expect on a factory gun.






Upper tang fits nicely, just a tiny gap at the rear, normal.  The stock will be on and off about 40 more times in the fitting and finishing process, so this might even close up a bit more...its still pretty snuggy tight at this point.






Lower tang also looks much the same.  The fit is good and both upper and lower tang make full contact with all clamping surfaces of the inletting.






None of my Marlin buttplates are worthy of reuse...most are old enough to have been ground to odd shapes in former refinishes.  So, just centering up and adding the old style single slot screws for now.  I may get another marlin buttplate and I may make a nice steel buttplate and rust blue it with the rifle or ......






So, assembled for now, this is the drivers side view.






And here is the Wrong Handed Drivers Side View...No apologies, Sister is a leftie so I can pick scabs if I wanna.....


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## cmshoot (Sep 12, 2013)

Sweet!


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## Swampfoxoutdoors (Sep 13, 2013)

yes very sweet!


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## Sharps40 (Sep 13, 2013)

I like how this late model/large bodied buttstock gives the appearance of shortness to the entire package.  This is one time the excessive largeness of the latest (last 20 years or so) Marlin stocks actually looks good.   Can't wait to get the goofy bent lever properly straightened out for proper form and function!  It'll trim up around the wrist and along the toe and comb but only a little, I think it'll keep that "Cute Girl with a Lil Extra Junk in Her Trunk" look to it.


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## Sharps40 (Sep 22, 2013)

Got three deer in the freezer, till I locate a butcher no room for more so....back to work on rifles.

Here we go, pistol to straight grip conversion....

Factory pistol tang on this gun....SN is under the White, we'll stay off it....all the work on the tang is from the scribed line back.






Cut, grind, drill, etc, the metal you no longer need.....come close to the lines scribed around the new stock....I'll round over the face of the new flat tang to make it look good.






Most of the old pistol grip tang is gone and now is some rough shaping with files and a bit of smoothing too....  This conversion just barely exposes the screw hole, no threads lost!  All the shaping of the lower tang on these older Dual Tang SN guns must not touch the SN.  This job doesn't in anyway!....measure the length of the SN before you attempt this conversion on the old Dual Tang SN guns.






The initial fit looks very good...the stock will blend down to the tangs, top and bottom....SN is totally preserved and I'll prolly go ahead and steel sleeve the rear tang screw hole.  It helps prevent splitting and cracks and over compression of the stock down the road, maintaining tight stock fit for much longer than wood alone.  






Here's how she looks so far...lever still has the silly looking curve but the tang is now correct.


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## Sharps40 (Sep 22, 2013)

Tools laid out for cold forging the lever from curved to straight.  It helps to have loving support.  Mina is always near by when the SmasherWackers come into play!






A series of taps and smashes and SmashWacks move the metal just slightly to straight configuration...start with some taps here.....






Continue with a bar to transfer SmashWacks to the inside of the loop here....






Carefully tapping and adjusting and preventing twist or bend and the roughly shaped straight lever looks like so....only about 1/4" of movement is required.






Test fitting and making sure the gun opens, locks and fires and the trigger safety works properly in and out of battery, success, straight tang and a lever straightened by forging.  I have also completed initial draw filing of the inside and outside of the lever loop to smooth it up, remove any waves and remove marks from the SmasherWackers.






A couple shots just to see how it's shaping up....and I function tested it with empty cartridge cases (empty/no bullets either).  It feeds, fires and extracts unbulleted empties without a hitch.  Might just have to go to range soon and test fire this lil Marauder Wannabe.


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## Sharps40 (Sep 24, 2013)

Okay, back to the Marauder.  I often put a sleeve in stocks at the rear tang.  Always on a mauser, its a factory way to keep the stock tight w/o compressing the wood and it prevents splits at the tang....common on mausers, and possible on any stock that uses a thrubolt at the rear.  So, I'll add one here....and I buggered up the inletting in the process, so, got some wood repair to do up top where its visible later on.  Course, it wouldn't be a home smith project if something didn't get buggered.  Here we go.

The steel sleeve is simple...Brake line of the right ID to allow a slip fit of the tang bolt.






Trim the new sleeve till it just slips between the tangs when they are installed on the action. (Open the hole in the tang of the stock for the sleeve...here's where I buggered the upper inletting, file slipped when working from bottom to top and I carved some extra wood away on the side.  But I'll fix it....it'll be fine.)  The idea is a sleeve of bedding between the wood and the tube.  Works best it the hole is a bit bigger all around than the sleeve, it lets the sleeve insert and line up without any stress/cockeyed which might make it difficult to install the tang screw.  You could also drill the hole out larger....I didn't want to set up the drill press, should have though!






Grease/wax up the action, tangs, etc, the Inside of the sleeve, the Outside of the screw and plug one end of the sleeve with clay.






The plug keeps bedding out of the inside of the sleeve when you install it in the hole on the wood.  Put some bedding in the hole in the wood and on the Outside of the sleeve....install the sleeve in the wood.  Install the stock, insert the well greased screw and secure the stock to the action.






When the screw is lined up and hits the threads in the lower tang, it forces out the plug of clay that kept yer screw from getting glued into place.....i.e. it should all come apart later and the steel sleeve should stay in the wood forever.






We'll see, tomorrow evening we try takin apart the Marauder and the Renegade....LUCK!!!


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## HossBog (Sep 29, 2013)

Oh me, Sharps, I want more, I want more, it's good, so I want more! Pics, that is. I just love watching y'all boys doing this kind of thing! I'd be sweating bad. I bought a Marlin 336 30/30 way back in '68, 1968, that is, but some jerk stole it and some of my other stuff! Stolen in '89. Miss that one. So, a few years ago, I finally got another one, in 2006-7, forgot. Also 30/30. I love the look of these levers! The way a rifle is meant to look - Bible says so.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to your shooting reports!


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## Sharps40 (Oct 11, 2013)

Buttplate arrived...off to the range sunday to see how it shoots before I take it any further!.....betcha it shoots good!


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## Sharps40 (Oct 13, 2013)

Don't know but it sure was a great day learning.....

 Took the old fuzzy cheap 3x9 off my sisters Remlin Stalker (30-30) and replaced it with a nice crisp fixed 4x bushnell and spanky new and quite low weaver rings. She's quite happy, missed an opportunity last year, her first out, she says cause she was fiddling with the 3x9 and would I please fix it so it doesn't turn and tempt me and have me missin another opportunity. Well, its fixed best way I know how. And she's happy. Zeroed it with Fed 170s at 25 and the first shot at 100 was 2" high and well centered. So, she spent the afternoon banging away at the 10 and X rings at 100m and quite happy with the clarity and fiddlefree nature of the fixed 4X.

 I discovered that I sure am quite and totally glad I missed that buck at 100 yards last month in the Low Country. Thought I flubbed it and I pretty much did....went out to shoot the 7x57 and was havin a wonderful time bangin the 200m and 300m steel and went hunting. Blooded the 45-70 the second morning with a perfect high shoulder shot, thru and thru...time to blood the Mauser. Wed evening, nearing last light and a perfect broadside lined up under that 7mm mauser......one each 140g Nosler Partition in the air and.....where the heck did the deer go? But he hot footed it outta there lickety split...no blood, no hair, dog couldn't even find it. So, sure am glad I went out to the range today...first 4 at 100m made a lovely well centered group on the target, 8" high......shot clean over that buck I did. Glad I missed clean and glad I missed it and glad I went back to check...had I assumed I simply pulled the shot, I'm sure I'da missed more at the end of this month when we go back. As it is, that good ol mauser is now sited about 1.25" high at 100 and good for a dead on hold at 200. I think if I hold steady and squeeze right, should be able to ventilate a deer or two with it here in Oct. It pays to check and be sure, assumptions woulda done me dead wrong later!

 Check fired in the Marauder Marlin project. 150g Winchesters and iron sights at 25m. It hits about 1/2" high at that range with the rear in the lowest notch. Prolly could use a scooch higher front sight...I figured as much but for now....I wish I could post the photo of the group (can't find the camera cable),,,,cover most of it with a quarter....that's great for me and iron sights. But this here project as a wonderfully perfect bore too. But function was perfect and overall, its time to get the buttplate installed correctly and start the do over on the wood finish. Final step will be striking and reblue and it'll be done and ready for the woods. Gonna make a fine stalking rifle and the accuracy looks fine enough for 150m+ shooting. 

 Took out Ol Ugly, the once blue, once rusty, once foreign military sale now back in the USA, currently poorly nickel plated with a bent rear sight and loosie goosie slide Colt Officer MKIV Series 80 45 ACP. Ol Ugly for short. Tested his magazines converted from 6 rounds to 7 rounds with Wilson guts.....perfect. Tested the refit of the extractor...no more stuck/bent/crunched brass on the last shot.....tested the function of some of the most recent 1000 rds of 230g FMJ that were loaded with HP38 and perfect, a 6 oclock hold nets a fallen plate or moveing dueling post plate from 5m to 15m as long as I don't jerk it around. Happy, happy....runs so well and consistently....and nearly rust proof with some nickel on the outside and plenty of dirt inside but I still toy with stripping it down and makin it like new and blueing...since it left the factory blue but came home with nickel over rust pitting.......but Ol Ugly is so reliable like he is......I'm torn...but happy, he's reliable like only a Colt ever will be and like Sig and the rest aspire to be! 

 So now, drinkin part of my birthday present from my sister, Dornfelder wine....the only wine I ever tried and liked....no sour wine taste. In a frosty beer mug to be sure! And gotta fire up the grill tomorrow and test out my new stainless steel and camo grillin tools....High Speed! Lovin them tools!

 Learned a lil bit bout leadin runnin deer with buckshot and my shotgun. Basically I didn't think much bout ballistics, lined er up and let er rip, centered up pretty nice....a deer chest broadside would catch 9 of 9 pellets at 25m with the full or modified choke. But, there is that pesky drop to think about.....shots are pretty consistently centered low and I can see a bit of lead on a runner and a bit of a spine height hold too. This could be quite interesting when we hunt with the dogs next month. As for them said 100 yard or 75 yards or even 50 yards......I'm not thinkin so much. With my rig, maybe 50 yards is gonna be the max range ad in some lead and maybe I oughta be thinkin less than that. But, and I quote...."With lead in the air and hope in the heart"....me and Dad are goin huntin!!! I'll bring extra flashlights......might be some trackin to do!

 Wonderful day spent with family. Everybody should try it, I highly recommend.


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## Sharps40 (Oct 13, 2013)

Here is the target from today's function check.  Shoots great, functions perfect.


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## Sharps40 (Oct 14, 2013)

Good progress today...buttplate fitted...and final shapeing of the wood stock is completed.  Here after the first wet sanding and waiting for it to dry so I can shave off any additional whiskers.  Leaving the wood slightly proud of the action panels but down flush on the tangs.  Looks nice I think.  Just good straight grain walnut.












The forend, stripped and all the dents and scuffs removed...also drying to remove the whiskers.






Factory forend has a bit of sap wood....blonder than the rest on the right side.  I may stain it I may not.  We'll see after some more smoothing and an initial coat of tru oil to freeze the last whiskers for removal.






One coat of TruOil rubbed in hard an hot till nearly dry.  This coat, when flashed over will be sanded back level to get the last of the lil whiskers that invariably pop out when doing finish work.

The wood looks great.


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## Sharps40 (Oct 16, 2013)

Been under the weather yesterday and today.  Tomorrow evening should be able to do a final sanding with the wood on the metal and then remove it all to seal the inletting, under the buttplate and get into a real good finish and hand rub before the end of the week.  I'll get my rustbluing set up going late next week too.  Should be able to get this one done in time for rifle season.


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## Sharps40 (Oct 23, 2013)

Some pics comeing soon. The wood is finally off the action. Initial sanding and fitting is done with the metal and the buttplate installed to control how much sanding occurs near the critical parts interfaces....don't wanna remove too much wood. The stock is even with the upper and lower tangs so it can be gripped without bite and the panels of the wrist are just like the forend wood....a bit proud of the action panels. The gap between the action panels and the wrist of the stock might be a touch larger than I like but it'll be okay.....the undercuts fit inside the action nicely. 

 For now, I'd sanded and wet sanded the wood to remove whiskers. Then rubbed in two good coats of Tru Oil with light sanding between to freeze and cut off any last hidden whiskers in the walnut....don't want the wood to whisker up one really humid or wet day....once it does its always rough to the touch afterward. 

 Tonight I did the final sanding to remove that second coat of Tru Oil, just barely back to the surface of the wood....does a nice job fillin the pores in Walnut too....

 I then removed all the wood, touched up any final spots with 220g and dusted it off and rubbed in hard and hot a third coat of Tru Oil. When that's dry, I'll knock back the gloss and level the finish with 0000 steel wool and rub in 3 or so more coats steel wooling inbetween. The final rub down will be with Brownells fff to bring the dull steel wooled finish up to a satin sheen that is smooth, warm and soft to touch. Nothin much like. And as always, the top coat is two layers of buffed Johnsons paste wax......good ol stuff and smells good when ya rub it in.

 But with the dry time between coats I can get back to Renegade project, need to sharpen my chisels, got some barrel key panels that need inletting into a nice chunk of walnut.....and I gotta get a big cardboard box, pan of water and a light bulb ready for blueing all the metal.....


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## Sharps40 (Oct 26, 2013)

Fourth trip down hand buff lane with this wood. 2 coats on with the wood and buttplate installed, lightly sanded back to the surface to freeze and remove whiskers. 2 coats with the wood metal and buttplate separated and deglossed/smoothed with 0000 steel wool. Butt is heavily sealed.....action inlets will be too before we are done. Time to reinstall the buttplate and rub in hard the last two coats of Tru Oil, deglossing and smoothing with 0000 steel wool and then the final rub out with fff and a topcoat of good paste wax.   

The high gloss and dust pins and finger smears and such of coat 4











And the degloss, removal of the dust pins and finger smears via 0000 steel wool.  Back to the surface, leveling the finish and providing the ground work for Soft, Warm and Satin Glow.


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## Sharps40 (Oct 26, 2013)

Sixth and last coat of tru oil just got rubbed hot, hard into the wood. Lotsa folks say they lay on 10 or 15 coats of TruOil.....I spose if ya like the look. It'll sure shine, like a low grade porn stars hooties when sprayed with Ultratittium Boob Gloss jes before the Action Scene.....but I prefer something a bit more subdued, traditional hand rubbed satin, it glows, lets the wood shine thru.....So, using truoil, no sense tryin to speed up the process and weaken the finish by mixin in armor all for the fast set...it sets plenty fast to rub in 6 or coats of finish in just 2 days...just rub in drops with the heel of yer hand, hot and hard till its almost dry and yer hand hurts from the friction heat....wait 3 to 5 hours, buff with 0000, dust and topcoat again. Tonight or tomorrow we'll do the last leveling with 0000 steel wool and a good rub out with fff compound.


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## Sharps40 (Oct 27, 2013)

Forend and front half of the stock are deglossed/leveled after the 6th and final coat of truoil has kicked over......I'll finish deglossing and leveling the back half of the stock too.






Here the forend and the front half of the stock have been handrubbed to a soft and satiny final glow using terry and brownells fff.  I'll finish rubbing out the back half of the stock too.






After the final rub out with fff, a coat of Johnsons paste wax is rubbed in....hard, heel of the hand, till it's hot and dry.  Then its buffed off with clean terry leaving the wood glowing, grain showing, golds, reds and greens of the wood all highlighted.






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Done....wrapped em up and boxed em up and put em in a dent free place till its time to do the final build after rust bluing all the metal.


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## Sharps40 (Dec 16, 2013)

Back home and time to finish shaping the lever and then decide if I'm gonna blue the entire gun or just the tang, trigger plate and lever or not at all.  I kinda want to see how it looks as is.  The wood is plain old straight grain and nothing fancy.

But, getting ready to set out the parts for cleaning and final fitting and then I'll decide after seeing how it looks together.


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## Sharps40 (Dec 16, 2013)

Yep. Action cleaned up real nice. There is nice original 1967 blue under there and only a kiss of speckling on the action panel. Some bare spots on the barrel but no rust thru. I think I'm going to focus on finishing this one up and rust blue the lever and tangs and some of the small parts and get it ready to go in the woods as a worker. Its been working all its life, judging by the broken stock and marks on the action and it still looks great.


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## Sharps40 (Dec 17, 2013)

Getting excited now, rollin in on the finished carbine.  

A view of the sighting from the shoulder end....That Winchester 1886 buckhorn and the Williams Fire Site front look great between eye and deer.





















And back here at the rear tang, blending in the blue again with pilkingtons where it was worn from use and buffed off in the stock fitting.  High point remains bright steel like the wear, edges are bluing up again to blend back into the wood.  Looks like the original carry wear.


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## Sharps40 (Dec 17, 2013)

Front band is final sculpted and fitted. I think, since I have to rust blue the lever, I will rust blue both bands. Barrel looks pretty decent outside and I don't want the bands to detract from the appearance.


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## Sharps40 (Dec 17, 2013)

Comeing along. Guts cleaned and inspected and back in place. All is well on the back end. Front end about to go together....working slow thru a bit of a feaver....9 airplanes in 12 days of travel and thousands of choke and pukes coughin on ya and I come home a bit ill. But, 80's punk on the record player and a lovely day to work on a gun....


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## Sharps40 (Dec 17, 2013)

With the forend magazine installed, a tour of the front half. Not attractive wood at all....but the blue is still good and I'll only be rebluing the lever. As for the rest of it, a good cleaning and this rifle come Marauder Carbine starts to show its stuff.


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## Sharps40 (Dec 17, 2013)

A tour around the back....


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## Sharps40 (Dec 17, 2013)

Lil chip out there at the upper tang.....


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## Sharps40 (Dec 17, 2013)

The hard part is getting anything to rust in the winter.  But for small parts a hot cup of water in a small box and in moments, the first color starts to bloom up on the lever...


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## Sharps40 (Dec 17, 2013)

For now, the first bloom of rust is comin on slow but pretty steady.


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## Sharps40 (Dec 17, 2013)

First rust. Boil red ferric oxide to change it to black ferro ferric oxide. The first of 6 10 cycles of rust, boil, card, coat and start over with rust....slowly progressing from silver bare metal to red rusty to grey to satin grey black.


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## Sharps40 (Dec 17, 2013)

So, boil the steel to turn the red rust black....the ferro ferric iron oxide is tightly bonded to the steel, a tiny bit at a time and hidden under fluffy iron oxide that's loose/not bonded.






 So, a scrub with degreased 0000 steel wool to get rid of the loose oxides and uncover the hard base color. Here at fist boil a watery grey. It'll darken toward black with successive rusting as we build the hard oxide color we want. 






We don't have the high heat and caustics of a hot blue so the final color with rust blue is a grey black and a satin finish. Rust blue will not shine so no since polishin much more than 150g....besides, we need pores open to get the chemicals to bite, again, we do not have the near 300 Degrees F of Hot Caustic bluing. We'll come back after 6 or 8 cycles and see the finished lever.

All the fluf off and the first color is an even translucent grey.


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## Sharps40 (Dec 17, 2013)

Second bloom is even more velvety smooth than the last.....we'll let the solution bite all night and I'll boil again in the morning.....prolly get a few cycles of rust and boil and card tomorrow. We'll see how it looks at the end of the day. With luck, pretty spanky good and without streaks or fingerprints.


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## Sharps40 (Dec 18, 2013)

About four rust and card cycles and its blacker than grey.  Coming along nicely.  I suppose this lever will be done today.  For now its sitting with a coat of Pilkingtons on it and in the damp box while I go to the garage to load 38s and 45s.  We'll check back in a few hours but this project might just be finished by tonight.


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## Sharps40 (Dec 18, 2013)

That's it for bluing the lever. It buffed out to a lovely dark grey black and I gave it a oil while hot. Perfect satin black. Time to go install it on the Marauder and take the final photographs.


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## Sharps40 (Dec 18, 2013)

Done.  Looks great and ready for final sight in and hunting.   These pics show some of the light blems in the original finish.

I suspect it'll need the front or rear sight banged a bit left or right.  Don't know what will regulate best...but my money is on 170s being closest off the bat.  150s will probably shoot a bit higher at longer ranges.  Anyway, regulate at 25 check at 100 and go hunting this week if you like!!!!!

With a scope, you should have no trouble with up to 150 to 200 meters from tower stands.  So, small enough for bustin brush and still accurate enough to reach out a bit.


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