Remington 12A pump .22

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I keep my eye out for .22lr around here because I have several rural family members who use it reqularly. I found 300 rounds of CCI last week for ~$0.08 a round. I got the crazy idea of looking for a .22 of my own. Yesterday, I ran across a 1920ish Remington 12A pump and picked it up for ~$100. I'm a sucker for old steel and wood project guns.

It's covered in surface rust, but only light pitting in a couple of places. It has 100 years of powder in places and the barrel groves show in some places and not in others. I won't know the actual condition of the barrel until I can remove the lead fowling. I'm optimistic because there is rifling at the ends of the barrel.

I'll need to fix the stock, but I've made a shotgun stock from scratch and repaired a broken milsurp stock. This one is cracked in several places. I'll buy one if it doesn't cost more than the gun.

I spent part of last night tearing it down and removing rust. It's cleaning up better than I thought. I may have to try my hand at rebluing.

I need to find the actual date. Numbers and text started popping out everywhere as I cleaned away a layer of rust.

Pictures below.
Last edited by inomaha on Wed Jan 14, 2015 10:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
Brian

Re: Remington 12A pump .22

5
The guy selling it said it was stored in the attic at his great grandparents farmhouse. It looks pitted as hell, but 2000 grit automotive sandpaper cleaned it off quickly. Basically the surface rusted after they stored with no bluing left. It was probably put up there with 10% bluing and it was temperature controlled enough to slow down the process.

I'll likely have to tear it completely down to the last part to get the rust and powder buildup out. But I was surprised how fast it's cleaned up already. I could oil it up and take it out shooting today.

The stock will be the hardest part of the process. I can either buy a repro and stain it, make my own, or fix the original. I'll need a butplate for it.

I didn't have much time to figure out what to pay for it, but I noticed most of them on Armslist and GunBroker go in the $500 range. So it should be an interesting piece when I'm done with it.

And it makes my 80+ year old Finnish M27 look like a youngin.
Brian

Re: Remington 12A pump .22

6
As to the stock, it was probably a farmers truck gun and hung in a rack in the back window, hence the rub mark on the one side. Either that or it was mounted on the step and step handle of a tractor like my grandpa did with his 12 guage shotgun. That way he could stop the tractor and shoot at rabbits when he saw them.
Last edited by inomaha on Wed Jan 14, 2015 12:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Brian

Re: Remington 12A pump .22

10
I'm going to go to the store and grab some copper Chore Boy scrubbing pads. That's one of the more commonly recommended method of lead removal on the internet. I have an old worn down 30 caliber brush I can wrap it around. Then I'll have a better feel for the barrel condition. But I've learned not to worry much about that until I know the gun doesn't shoot right. Sometimes old nasty looking barrels work fine. And if they do, don't let people look down your barrel and it's all ok.

The fact that there is rifling at the chamber end and rifling at the barrel end makes me think it's a combination of fouling and my poor eyesight.

Worst case scenario is I buy a replacement barrel or barreled action for $50-100. If the barrel cleans up I'll see what the locals are charging for hot bluing and put it to that or give it a try myself.

I can get a new walnut gun stock from Boyds for $55 so that's a no brainer. I can't buy the wood to make one for that. http://www.boydsgunstocks.com/FindAStoc ... 5&Finish=1

I might be able to get the whole project completely redone for a total cost of $200-250 (including the initial purchase) and have a cool little plinker. That was the budget I was thinking about for a Ruger 10/22. But like I said, I'm a sucker for old steel and wood.

I could always fix the stock a little (with the Devcon 2-ton epoxy I have somewhere in my mess), leave it without bluing, oil it up for protection, and only have $100 in it.
Brian

Re: Remington 12A pump .22

11
After the initial de-rusting it's cleaning up very well. Minor pitting but it's 100 years old.

I'm going to need to take it completely apart when I get the chance. There is so much powder residue in the moving parts it sounds like sandpaper. I've gotten the majority of the bigger stuff out, but I'll need to get the trigger assembly and hammer apart. It's nasty in there.

I've worked on Mosins and they weren't nearly as dirty as this thing.
Brian

Re: Remington 12A pump .22

12
I took the trigger assembly apart. Damn what a buildup. Then bam, a spring and another part go flying. FUCKING MONKEY SHIT ON A STICK!!! I heard one piece hit something across the garage/shop so I found it right away.

I gave up looking for the spring, crawling around on my hands and knees, and scraped and brushed out 100 years of crap.

Then I started cleaning off the bench and a small spring rolled out of a plastic bag.

Halle-fucking-lujah.

I put the assembly back together and had a celebration drink.

Still the nastiest thing I've worked on. Including the rusted on brakes on my daughter's used car.
Brian

Re: Remington 12A pump .22

13
This is one of the buckets of stuff I've removed. About 30% is in here and the rest stuck to rags.
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After a good cleaning, I've determined the barrel is shot. There's rifling in there, but I can stick a .22 down the end and it doesn't stop going until it hits the rim. That's not a good thing. So while I'm determining if I can buy a used barrel in better condition, buy a used barrel/reciever as parts in better condition, have it relined, or get a reproduction barrel; I decided to pick up a mid 80s Marlin 60 someone was selling. It's the longer barrel version with 18 shot tube magazine. Cheap, accurate, semi-auto. He was looking for something with a magazine, I was looking for something to tide me over while I worked on this project.

100 years of shooting, improper storage, and bad cleaning gets you one of these
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I was looking at the wood and found cracks everywhere. I'm wavering between keeping the original and replacing it. Replacement is faster, but original is character. It will take some creative epoxy work to get everthing solid again. I'm leaning towards fixing and keeping replacement as a backup option if I can't get it to work. $120 worth of replacement parts, 5 to 10 hours of fixing time.
20150118_164619_resized.jpg
I've found with cracks it's almost impossible to get the expoxy down into the crack when fixing. I find it easier and a better long term solution to break it to the end and fix it from there. As you can see from this one, the crack was almost all the way through anyway. When I started stretching it out to find the end it only showed about 1/4 of the length even though the cleaning solution had migrated about 3/4 of the length.

The stock has 4 cracks and piece that came off, plus the mark on the side, and the worn end. So it may not be salvagable.
Brian

Re: Remington 12A pump .22

17
Your friend Larry has a great video on relining the barrel. I'm sure you can do it in the garage with a hammer and some duct tape. :lol: Bummer about the barrel being shot out, hopefully it performs better than it looks- sometimes they surprise you.
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
- Maya Angelou

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Re: Remington 12A pump .22

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shinzen wrote:
Simmer down wrote:http://www.accurateshooter.com/gear-rev ... llet-tool/

Bump that 22 lead up to 223+

I've read good and bad on this tool. Its interesting to consider all the same.
Now that's an interesting idea.
It's $128 for the deluxe set. I'd do a full review on the thing once someone sends it to me. Might throw in a few bricks of various brands also. :thumbup:

Here's the complete list of magical doodads! One tool can bump the 22 up to .225" I wonder if that would really help bores that are all but slick?
http://pacotools.com/tool_discriptions
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Puffing up is no substitute for smarts but it's a common home remedy

Re: Remington 12A pump .22

24
I've gotten around to repairing the wood. I need extra time to think when doing it so I use 30 minute set time Devcon 2 ton Epoxy.
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I've done some more light sanding after this photo and the visible line has almost disappeared. You can see it in this photo because it's excess epoxy squeezed out. Any noticable areas I'll file with a finish file and add some epoxy with wood sanding dust I've collected. That will allow the epoxy on the surface to take some stain into it and help blend it in.
Brian

Re: Remington 12A pump .22

25
Here's the stock. I'm attempting to put it back together now. I'd skip it if it was a shotgun or higher powered rifle, but it should hold up with the low power of a .22lr.
20150207_160645_resized.jpg
It needs some more dry time before I can finish the last couple of small pieces and take some photos. It's actually piecing together nicely. The epoxy is stonger than the wood, so I spent more time looking for cracks and making the jig-saw puzzle out of it. :D
Brian

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