Resurrection 73

[Pat C]

A friend of mine inherited this old 73 from a two generation family ownership . Spent its life in pacific northwest in some fairly tough conditions.
Anyway he considered it junk and passed it on to me .

As you can see its pretty tuff shape ,first thought it was nickel plated but complete teardown revealed blue and case colored.
Wood is pretty decent and most everything is there except original sights ,mag tube cap/screw.

This one met the dreaded hacksaw barrel and quite a colorful way to hold in the mag tube spring,just crush the tube .

The bore is fair ,actually good last half but chamber end is pitted and worn rifling.

My plan is to return it to proper appearance for display rifle but will at least test fire it for curiosity reasons.

As received 140 years of rust,grime, dirt,action would barely cycle .

I've got everything taken down ,cleaned and inspected.Notice the bright blue inside frame and the vivid case hardening of hammer and carrier lifter.

Plan the cut the barrel to 20" to make it a short rifle and recut tube and front sight dovetail/mag tube radial dovetail.

The original radial dovetail met the I'll date of someone driving it out straight and ruined it.
But at least cutting it back the proper appearance can be again achieved.

I keep resisting the urge to cut it to 18" a lot of short rifles had shorter friends but not all especially the 18-22" versions.

[marlinman93]

Considering there are still some guys around with parts barrels, and good original, or repro mag tubes, I would keep everything as-is, but have a new barrel and mag tube installed. Then it will not only look proper, but could be safely fired as much as you want to.
The gun has been around a long time, and it deserves to be brought back to shooting condition, and no need to do a total restoration.

https://www.winchesterbarrels.com/store ... rrels.html

[.45colt]

I would do exactly as Marlinman suggests . that is one worth shooting again! Good Luck.

[Griff]

I would do exactly as Marlinman suggests . that is one worth shooting again! Good Luck.

+1!

[Pat C]

My friends cousin was 85 ,recently passed. Had been most recent owner. Supposedly his preferred maintenance was pour SAE 30 over it . Before he passed it on he said he sure hoped it could be made to work again.

Other than extreme grime and gunk it was in firing condition but carrier was froze up .

The bore is still plenty shootable after some further cleaning. The mag tube is fine except last few inches .
Thats why my plan was to make it a short rifle ,would be at least original parts.

I've got correct sights ,need to get a mag tube cap and screw.