Well I brought my mint 1971 light twelve out for its first skeet shoot today. A young guy was adjusting a thrower and launched a bird right at me. It hit the virgin Belgian walnut forearm and took a couple of deep divots out. It also hit me in the ear. Hell with the ear I'm heartbroken about this forearm. What are my options? Is there a refinisher that can fill/repair this? Are there NOS parts that will match? The gun is otherwise mint and I want it back right. Thanks in advance. Tom
Ouch! Seems your club owes you a forearm. They are available from Brownells and Midwest Gun Works. Maybe Art's, MGW, or another outfit can repair the original. But I'd get a replacement first, repairs usually take quite a while.
Luckily stock repairs are not too difficult.. something like that should be no problem to an experienced gunsmith. You can fill gouges with standings and shellac. There are other recipes available but a full refinish on the forend is required... you won't be able to spot repair that. That's where experience comes in.. matching the new finish on the forend to the butt. A good gunsmith will have a shelf full of potions to get the colour just right. I've seen stocks snapped in half, repaired with absolutely no way of telling it was ever damaged. One piece of advice I can offer is get onto the network54 yellow airgun forum. There are lots and lots of contacts there of people who do really high end stock work for air rifles. You will probably find someone on there who could do the repair for you.
Thanks for the comments. I looked up the capabilities of Art's and I'm leaning toward sending it out to them. I'm sure they will do a good job and I'll forget it even happened. Funny, my other guns I've had for 35-45 years and not a ding on them. This is my best gun and it got dinged by this errant bird on the first outing. Uggghh.
Well I sent the damaged forearm up to Art's Gun Shop and spoke to them today. Nice folks. They are going to fix it and get it back to me in about one month. Must be nice to know how to do stuff. I'll post an after pic so we can see their handy work. Tom
Good news . . I got the forearm back from Art's Gun Shop today and they did a very nice job fixing the damage. One month turnaround and the cost was very reasonable with no surprises. Thanks for the recommendation and thanks Art's! Tom
Good to know and thanks for the follow up. One of the Sweet Sixteens I'm looking at has a couple boogers on the stock. I'll keep Art in mind BoB BoB
I am glad you got that fixed! For guns that I wish to hunt with, I actually try to get ones a bit dinged up, since I know I'll fall in the woods or brush up against a bush, scratching it.
Tom, I have very similar damage to a Sweet 16 I just got hold of from gunbroker. The seller did not show pictures of this damage! How much was Art's repair? You may send me an email on here if you like. Thanks!
The cost was estimated by Art to be $100 and the actual was $100. They don't try to bid low and watch it grow.
Thanks man. They estimated about $200 or so for my damage. If you can, hit us with pics of the newly-repaired pieces.
Art's is absolutely top notch. Great guys and they do it right. My son in law's 1989 Sweet next to my 1962. Art did the 1989 last month and if my '62 needs it someday, I know exactly who is doing the work. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
