Diedre. ..

...means sorrowful (last time I looked it up, anyway.)

She started as a meek Russian immigrant...



and is now a naturalized, right wing whacko American.
At the least, old school conservative.





You too can have your own "VERY.FAVORITE.GUN."
$625, Saiga-12, delivered
$167 worth of "group buy" parts, over a year ago-included Tapco Trigger, hammer & sear, ACE Stock and ACE Folding Mechanism
$50 (delivered) of Tromix DIY Trigger Guard
and about $200 worth of MD20 drum (not pictured.)
Good thing I owed myself a DuraCoat job, or this would have got pricey.
I'm still down around $90 in muzzlebrake and $125$235 in forearm, once I decide- then I'll need a sling. Luckily, the 4-position gas plug is coming as a freebie.
All I have to complain about is the godforsaken BHO spring- what a pain that was to figure out. The shepherds crook was semi-worthless; this one gets 3/16" e-clips until I locate a metal crook.
Anyone have any leads?

Why, oh WHY!?!

Why do people put their guns in fluffy cases, haul them in and out of the house, and forget to oil them since 1957?
This former SuperModel of an Ithaca Model 37R will now need refinished, its collectors value consigned to the ash-heap of history,

This is gonna feel (to me) like having to do reconstructive cosmetic surgery on a perky and firm 25-year-old Denise Richards(had she been hideously disfigured.).
Kinda depressing, and the results, while possiblt way cool, will NEVER be as sweet-assed as the original version was.

So here are the BEFORE pictures:






After discussion with the owner and the work is finished, I'll put up the AFTERs.

...and, while I'm thinking of it, DOLLHOUSE ROCKS. Nice job, Joss. We missed ya, buddy.

1100 from a tropical paradise

...or at least, located where a tropical paradise should be.
The only thing that bugged me about sending this back to the owner was the amazing lack of a fiber-optic front bead on the sawed-down vent ribbed barrel.

It's good to be the King!

English to Gunsmith dictionary

Anybody know where I can find one to hand out to folks BEFORE I take in work?

Today's example:

(In English) "Can you clean my shotgun for me?"

(Gunsmith SHOULD hear) "I've kept this buried in my back yard for 2 years, and hadn't cleaned it for at least 10 years before that. I think the freeze/thaw cycle might have left a mark on the bluing; mechanical parts X, Y and Z also stick sometimes- can you make it look brand new, clean it, test it, and only bill me for 30 minutes of work?"

I'm just saying.

Perhaps $150 Mossbergs wouldn't become $20 Mossbergs (requiring $200 of work & parts!) if they had been fortunate enough to have been born Benellis- but somehow, I doubt it.

Having a truck gun is one thing-full of dirt & lint & kept in a soft case in your trunk for 3 weeks during first snow, well, not so hot.

Hey, on a n up note, check out the newish hat at the NRASTORE.

ACU Remington 870 Blast-O-Tron

I had fun on this one. I've done dozens of 870s, but this one was just, well, special.



It got micro-abrasive blasted end to end (the non-parked bits, anyway,) and redone in the most frequent pattern I get any more, that wacky US Army ACU. Topped off the front sight with a blaze orange DuraCoat dot; impossible to miss from the user's perspective, and it was ringed with glow-in-the dark phosphorescent. Kinda tricky on a bead sight, but it works.



The colors will be WAAAAY off from the actual fabric unless you hand mix and adjust them, and for those of you who are foolishly ignoring the DuraCoat Mythbusters and "trying this at home," make sure you use only UV-resistant hardener with your matte clearcoat, so that the colors never fade, and make any final adjustments to color by mixing DROPS (not buckets or spoonfuls) of Coyote or MagPul FDE to your final UV-proof clearcoat.



Air-cure for a couple of days, lube, and fire liberally to taste.



As this was a brand new shotty, I was kinda disappointed that Remington QC did not catch the GIANT burr (about 1/16th of an inch!) that was sticking out of the ejection port, off of the right slide rail. God bless the guy that invented diamond bits and files.
Guess I can't fault Remington too much; the dealer hadn't caught it, and neither had the distributor that got it to the dealer, or the customer that sent it in. Woulda been a nasty skin snag the first time a finger went in the port for anything, and at the very least a partial FTE.

Still, I kinda wanted to keep this one, with the snazzy little 3-rail fore arm. Needs a side-saddle and red dot, though, really, to be mo-funner.

I really need to get a Saiga.

Blaze and Hawk

No, these are not 2 superheroes. Well, maybe they are somewhere, but not here.

I had someone ask what the 2 oddest requests so far were; here they are.

Example A was for a Blaze Orange DuraCoated Remington 870. Trick is, there was no such thing as Blaze Orange DuraCoat, until I mixed it up. It is absolute hell to photograph properly- digital cameras do NOT like that color.
It eventually ended up with a green and black branch/leaf camo pattern, t tone it down some, and a UV reflective matte clear topcoat. I probably should have hit it with some glow-in-the dark clear for good measure, but there IS such a thing as overkill.

Luckily, the leftover Blaze orange kicks some serious ass on front sights. you CANNOT miss the sight blade, period.

Example B was when another dealer requested a new AR be redone in his favorite college teams colors- so now I needed a gold that was more gold than stock "gold" DuraCoat; I had to mix that one up too. So it got new gold, black, white and canary yellow, with a multilayer glossy clearcoat.

I dig projects like this. The John Deere Green & Yellow break action was kind of odd, too, but I did not get pictures of it assembled, as the wood was jobbed out elsewhere.

Remington Spartan Gunworks SPR 100 Nickel .410 Review

When it comes to the Remington SPR 100 Nickel youth model, "Spartan" is an accurate description.

To be fair, I have not and likely will not shoot either of these 2 .410s that I just got in. .410 is just nothing exciting to me at all.

Introduced in 2005-2006, and imported under the Remington "Spartan Gun Works" name, these guns are basically Russian Baikal IZH-18M-Ms with a nickle-plated receiver and a vent rib attached. These 24" barrel single-shot .410s are currently priced at under $180 each.

The 2 examples I received in yesterday were noticeably different from each other, even though they are identical in model number ( a customer ordered 2.)




The 2 barrel assemblies were identical, with the exception of one barrel being laser-engraved under the chamber with "Read Manual Before Use." This could prove to be a real trick in itself, as the manual consists of paperwork folded up similar to a road map, and then stapled together. It seems that is should unfold so you can read it, but the pesky staples are in the way of opening it up all the way.

These guns are a hammerless design, with an opening lever behind the trigger guard and an action that cocks on closing. The safety is a cross-bolt design, and while ads say the trigger is titanium coated, they both look like that were hot salts blues to about a straw color- probably because of the rough finish prior to plating (or whatever was done to them.)The cocking indicator is a piece of off-white plastic "nub" that sticks up from the top of the receiver. (Red would have been better.)
One gun came with a nifty trigger lock assembly, a strange little plastic "dome" type doohickey that locks over the entire trigger assembly with a key that looks like a mini barrel busing wrench. I'm not sure why no such device was included with the second gun.

Both boxes had "Youth Handgun Safety Notices" included, which struck me as kind of odd. Perhaps the distributor adds them to all shipments.

Gun "A" has a blued trigger guard, really fat, with edges sharp enough to cut steak, and a crisp and decent opening lever at the rear of the guard.

Gun "B" has a plastic trigger guard, and the opening lever at the back of it looks like it was made from a leftover 10-speed bicycle brake part.


Back to the barrels: the finish is good on the barrels on both guns. The bluing is really nice-where there is bluing. The strangest thing to me about these little .410s is how nice the bluing is on the barrels, and how the muzzle end looks like it was terminated with a CHOP SAW. There is 0% Blue on the muzzle end of the barrel of either gun. Very odd; it is all I can do to restrain myself from hitting both muzzles with cold blue before delivering these.



The wood on both guns is very nice, I'd say about an 8 on a scale of 1-10 (for what these guns are.) The forearms, I like- the stock, specifically the grip section, pisses me off. It is so thick that a kid or a petite lady would likely have a hard time keeping a secure hold of this shotgun. I do not have massive hands myself, but can handle a full sized 10mm Glock with no problems- yet holding this .410 feels kinda like holding on to a 2x4.

Weight on this gun is excessive; I'm guessing because of the wood, and the extra beefy receiver (guessing the same as the 12 gauge receivers on other Baikal single-shots.) The actions on both guns are very stiff right out of the box; many kids would have problems getting these opened OR closed. There is an ejector "override" switch on the bottom of the receiver, which is kind of unique.

The packing was secure; but you would think that Remington or Baikal would bother to inspect the nickel for plating "spots" and actually remove the machining gunk, oil, and debris from the assembled actions prior to packaging (apparently not.)

Final thoughts:
If I was Remington, I would want some serious improvements on the QC on these before my name was attached to them- at the VERY least, in the arena of cleanup prior to shipping.

Will this gun shoot? Most certainly. After all, they are single-shot .410s, and as they are brand new, ok acquisitions if you can get them for under $200. Given my druthers, though, I would hunt pawnshops for a 60 year old plus American single-shot .410, and get by with paying $100 or less on something that can be refinished the way I want it, and easily repaired by any 'smith with some common sense. Overall, I'm very "John Kerry" ambiguous on this one-I can take or leave the SPR100.

DuraCoat camo Example #1

So, this is what I do for fun & profit. I take dull, run of the mill weapons and camo the heck out of them. I also do a fair share of firearm rehabilitation-"cosmetic surgery," if you will, on rusty, fugly, and well-used guns. Pits filled, holes plugged. All by request. Many firearms purists despise this type of work and finish- I am not in a position to reach out to those folk's happiness just yet. I am already set up to black manganese parkerize, DuraCoat and do a bit of electroless nickle; until I move in a couple of years, I will not set up to hot blue or Zinc park. When I do, though, hold on tight-it will kick smurf arse. Meanwhile, I have plenty on my plate to keep me at the shop for 20-plus hours a week.
This shining example is a "snakeskin" type camo, usually applied by folks using the good old fashioned GI laundry bag or sniper veil. While those produce pretty cool results on their own, I prefer various other netting sources. This Remington 870 started out as a 4-color pattern; once I got my heart into it, though, it rapidly evolved to seven.
Here is Stretch, the shop assistant/apprentice, posing with the partially assembled remmy:

Stretch is a good kid, and she had fun working on stuff this summer, learning tools.
It beat the snot out of mowing lawns & cleaning gutters, I suppose...or worse, detassling corn.
I gave her a WalMart face, until such time as she decides she's not shy. I mean, how self conscious were you at 12?