doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Winchester Model 55 question w/pics

Beautiful work Doug. For anyone interested I found my bookmark for a M94 polishing tutorial put online by Jack Belk 11 years ago. Hope it stays up.

Belk Tutorial

Thanks Rob....

The thread you posted is a good one for anyone interested in hand polishing a lever gun frame. I noticed he didn't pull the barrel, which I always do first.

Thanks for posting.

Best,

That's not the barrel, that's a spud he inserts with flats to be held in a vise, it's mentioned in picture #17.

Thanks Rob, guess I didn't read far enough....I use an old junk barrel for the same purpose......

He does a good job for sure.......

Belk's an interesting story. He did some great work but has gotten a lot of flack for being a paid consultant against Remington in the M700 trigger AD issue.

Look at some of his other albums, there some nice stuff there about bolt handles, polishing Mausers...

Long ago, Belk sent me some short instructions on polishing and rust bluing. They were very helpful and I really appreciated them. Still do.

I like the guy, but he sure has become a pariah in Electroland, where the arguments against him are about as ignorant and stupid as any I've seen.

I wish him luck.

Brent

I've had one AD in my life and it was when I took the safety off a 700. Scared me and a guide but muzzle was in a safe direction. I agree with you about his treatment, whether he's right or wrong he doesn't deserve it.

A very nice hand polishing job on the link, but if you're doing a factory style restoration, most all the grit lines would be running the wrong way.
Should be verticle on the sides and accross the width of the frame on the top and bottom surfaces.
The bolt should be polished accrossed it too, not length wise.

The pump gun frames (12 &42) are the same (verticle) on the sides.

I've been reading that guns fro this era that have never been used, literally New In Box, have had all the blue flake off the receiver as a result of the nickel content of the steel. This leads me to wonder if just the receiver was refinished and the rest left as is.

Winchester using Nickel Steel for the 1894 frames is pure bunk.

For years I had heard that, and read it in at least one book, but it always bothered me that the supposed nickel steel frames didn�t exhibit the characteristics of nickel steel. I finally had a few frames tested; pre 1900 to mid 30�s, .The nickel content is way too low to be considered Nickel Steel.

The flaking on those frames is a result of the bluing process that Winchester used at the time; carbonia bluing. Winchester realized early on that the bluing would flake if not done properly, and used a small inspection stamp to check the bluing.

The polish marks on the frame should be North-South, and a Kutter brought up, the polishing lines near the rear the rear radius should match that angle.

Polishing old Winchesters to match the original polish is extremely difficult to do correctly, for a couple of reasons: Winchester�s polishing heads were mad of walrus hide, fairly difficult to get this day and age. The polishing heads were radiused to match the surface that was being polished, so for any one model you would need a dozen or so polishing heads.

V/R

Mike