Restoration help needed. Winchester 02A .22 Ever seen one of these?

[timthetoolman]

This Winchester Model 02A has been in my family a long time and I recently passed it to my son.  It has been refinished a couple times over the years.  My father once flipped over the handlebars of his bike with it splitting the stock in half.  Needless to say it's far from ideal condition and any financial value it had left is gone, but it has HUGE sentimental value in my family.  As you can see the trigger guard was a cob job, by me, to make it a bit safer for my son to shoot it when he got it.  I never even saw one on it personally, and my dad forgot where it was placed years ago when he was doing some work on the little rifle.  I have only ever seen two guns close to it and both were 04A's.  I was able to snap some pics of the trigger guard so I might have better luck in finding a replacement...so far no luck.  The barrel looks like it was coated in spray paint, the stock was stripped and repaired by my father years ago but never stained or rubbed. And now I would like to finish this little family project.  Like I said I know value is out the window already anyway so I think I am ok to get this project underway.

 

I have a few cold bluing products around but I have only ever done small parts with them.  Any advice on how a whole barrel could come out if the time and prep were put into it?  Anyone have experience with something like this?

 

Any idea where I can find a trigger guard or have a replica made perhaps?

 

Any literature on what color the stock was originally?

 

Anything will help guys...thanks in advance!  I would like to do as much of this project myself as possible.

 

Tim

 

Edited September 5, 2013 by timthetoolman

[MarkInNashville]

I cant say that I have any pertinent information on this but I think if you need an actual gunsmith service I always use http://www.midtngunsmithing.com/ Brandon is an excellent craftsman.

[JAB]

First, just let me say that I am far from being an 'expert' on refinishing or anything else.  I have only one or two 'easy' projects under my belt.

 

So, with that out of the way, I will post a couple of pics of my (so far one and only) efforts to use cold blue for more than just small touch-ups.  I used it on the barrel on an old Springfield pump action shotgun.  As you may know, those shotguns are 'utility' guns - good for what they are but hardly worth much $$$.  Additionally, this one had zero sentimental value, for me.  I mostly wanted the experience, wasn't fixing it up to sell and really only intended to use it as a 'utility' shotgun, anyhow so my heart was not going to be broken if I fouled something up.

 

These pics give some idea of what the barrel looked like before I started on it - the factory 'bluing' or whatever they used was more or less gone, leaving behind almost bare metal, at least in places:

 

 

 

It got sanded to bare metal using just elbow grease and sandpaper:

 

 

And then cold blued:

 

 

The cold blue didn't give the absolute greatest, possible finish.  That is probably due in part to the shortcomings of the product and also (probably in much larger part) to my lack of experience and skill with it - plus the fact that I wasn't just 'obsessing' over it coming out perfect.  That said, I have been told by guys on other forums who have done a lot of refinishing/restoring that my results are about average for what you can expect with cold bluing even with experience and practice at using it  Still, for the intended purpose I think it is a pretty decent, serviceable finish that was inexpensive and relatively easy to apply.  I do think it looks better with the cold blue finish than it did, before.  I would use cold bluing again, in the future, for similar projects:

 

Before:

 

 

After:

 

Edited September 9, 2013 by JAB

[c.a.willard]

Winchesters parts website recommends this guy for parts for that particular rifle.

 

Jack First, Inc.
1201 Turbin Drive
Rapid City SD, 57701
Phone: 605-343-8481

 

I checked their website and they do not have a parts catalog online so i would suggest giving them a call and seeing what they can do.

[timthetoolman]

Thanks for your help and input guys!  Ill make some calls and see if I can find that part.  Anyone else out there use cold bluing?  I imagine its alot like auto body work, the better the prep the better the finish.

[timthetoolman]

Well no luck on the trigger guard. Looks like I'm gonna have to bust out the torch and hammer.