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I have this old gun...

I wanted to thank you too, but if you get a chance, also please thank your Dad for the idea about using the wooden dowels for me. It worked great. I just can't wrap my mind spending $75 for a replacement stock on a gun that you can buy for $125 every day of the week.

In fairness, the stock was split all the way through from the front edge, all the way back into the pistol grip area behind the receiver.

I don't know if someone had gotten mad and wrapped the gun around a tree or what exactly busted it the way that it was, but it was definitely split and not just a little.

The stock is a lot more sturdy than it was and I think will be fine now. It doesn't have virtually any give or flex to it anymore. I wouldn't worry about letting one of my sons use it now if they wanted to.

I put 7 dowels all the way through the stock side to side starting at the front edge just behind where the stock starts and then going back stopping in the rear grip at the rearmost part where it was split.

Squirrel season starts here the first or second week in August and several of us are already planning to go. Yes, the old bolt action is earmarked to go and I plan to use it the first trip out. I've noticed seeing a few early green acorns starting to fall already.

I'm going to take the gun out and shoot it at some poster paper before squirrel season to see how it's shooting.

I don't remember shooting it after I lowered the front bead more so I'm interested in seeing where it's patterning. I think it should be shooting really close to dead on because it was still a little low when I had the bead up higher to start with.

And I also got some Remington nitro sporting clay 8 shot that I want to try. When I was testing it before, was shooting really weak hand loads and handicap low brass because I was half afraid of it then but I did notice it liked the 8 shot really good. While I'm not a huge fan of 8 shot on squirrels (I always liked 6 shot better), with as good as it was shooting the 8's at 20 and 25 yards, I'll at least try to listen to what the gun was trying to tell me.

If I stick with the 8's, I want some higher velocity shells than I was testing it with though. I think the nitro clays are supposed to be about 1300 fps. That's about 120 fps more than some of my weak handloads. Should be enough for squirrels at 40-120 feet away.

Edit:

Was able to do some test shots using the nitro shells. Yes, they do have a bit more kick to them but they still shot well. And would do better for hunting. Here are a couple of test patterns at 25 yards.

There are 2 shots per target.

bolt pattern.jpg
bolt pattern 2 shot.jpg
 
Thanks for the compliment buddy.

What started out as a winter project, eventually turned into a battle of wills.

I didn't half expect to be able to find all the missing and damaged parts to be honest with you considering it's age. That was the guns' only saving grace.

Turns out that hiding under all of that rust and gunk and broken heap, was a really good shooter despite that I thought that it would probably shoot as bad as it looked to begin with.

The ultimate test is whether it'll put food on the table or not. I think it will, but until I settle in behind the trigger and begin to hear the soft thud of squirrels hitting the ground out of old growth oaks that are 80 feet tall or more depending on the terrain and where I'm standing, that will determine my overall opinion of it. Until then, I'm cautiously but optimistically reserving judgement.
 
Squirrel season starts soon. I'll let you know how it does !
 
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