"Big Boston" Posted September 11, 2024 Posted September 11, 2024 After cleaning as much of the dirt impregnated hardened oil and grease as I could, I felt that the cartridge guide was still a bit stiff. I grabbed an old, defective, carrier, looked at how the guide was retained, and with a small punch was able to drive out the rivet and easily remove the guide. Hint, the rivet is 0.12" in diameter, with a concave end, use a punch at least half that size to drive it out. Under the guide is a friction spring, and on mine it was full of hard dirt. I cleaned it all up and re-assembled it. The rivet is held in place by riveting the end. Duh! It's a rivet. The concave dimple in the end requires a punch with a rounded end to peen correctly. Maximum diameter that the punch can be is app. 0.15". I was able to rivet the end enough to retain the guide, but in retrospect a new rivet would have been the proper way to get it done. It moved a bit freer, but the friction spring is pretty stout. The guide isn't likely to flop around, and in order to work as it should, it isn't supposed to either. Anyways, that's it, after "fixing" likely a half dozen or so 97s, this was the my first time removing the cartridge guide. Numrich sells a new rivet, and has the friction spring as well. But fair warning, Winchester did use different styles of friction springs, and countersunk the recess in the carrier deeper for the style. With every 1897 I work on, I learn a bit more. This last one has a 1906 DOM, is a "D", came with a steel butt plate and the LOP was 13". It had a 26" full choke barrel, which is 20" now. The gun itself had some sort of Bubba rust removal happening recently, but was relatively unmolested otherwise, and had very few issues. It was not nice enough to be a collector, therefore I had no qualms about making a CAS/Wild Bunch shotgun out of it. I did add a feed six follower and shortened the magazine tube spring a bit. Even as ugly as it was, the price was still up there. There are still new Chinese 97s at a few stores, and that may have been a better (cheaper) way to go, but I like to use the real ones. But honestly, my clones are just as smooth, they just lack the style points. Yes, I have more than the mandatory three. The action slide handle (forend) is a cheap replacement. It doesn't look correct to me. I've epoxied the old two piece one back together, it may get reinstalled if the ugly gets on my nerves. The old handle had a crack, and when I spread it to get glue in, well, it broke in two. That one is on me, not the handles fault as the crack was only a bit over an inch long. BB
Sammy1897 Posted September 16, 2024 Posted September 16, 2024 I love those older style stocks. More pics please. Just curious, how secure is the barrel band? Mine seems to wiggle more than my liking, but I suspect it may be normal.
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