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When
I arrived in the St. Louis repair facility, we were trying to
seal the inletting of the gunstocks with a special sealer. The
metal was then refinished and the gun was returned to its owner.
This sealing process was just a temporary fix, which was buying
a little time and it was soon discovered that the only real fix
was to replace the wood. Now, over the past 35 years that I have
been in the gunsmithing trade, I have heard of a good many ways
to seal salt stocks. I’ve been told of glass bedding processes
and boiling the wood in various chemicals and painting special
sealers into the inletting, but let me assure you that nothing
to this date has been found to work. The only cure is to replace
the salt wood with clean wood that has been properly dried in
a kiln. Yes, we did buy some time by sealing the wood, but it
was just a band aid and the guns would be returning soon for new
wood. They just kept coming back like annoying in-Iaws.
So,
how do you spot a salt cured gun? I can go to just about any gun
show and always find a couple of them. I knew a man in the gunstock
business who told me he could taste the salt in a stock blank.
He just used the old tongue method, but I think the best way is
to use the old eye ball. If you know what to look for, they are
easy to spot. On rifles, I always look at the reinforcement screws
in the side of the stock or around the swivel studs. On Superposed
shotguns, I always check around the forearm screw escutcheons
or around the forearm bracket. One of my favorite salt tests involves
removing the butt plate screws and looking for rust on them. Many
times you simply won’t be able to remove the screws as salt locks
them into place. Now on the Superposed guns, the stock and forearm
could be salt cured, or just one piece or the other could be bad.
I always worry with a hot salt forearm on these guns as I have
seen some pitting so bad on the barrels that they had to be replaced.
A salty stock is bad, but a receiver can always be saved. Barrels
are expensive and nearly impossible to find. If you really want
to check for salt, the best method is to use a silver nitrate
mixture diluted to about 1 %. Check with me as I can get you a
small bottle at a low cost.
So
now if you have been unfortunate enough to get stuck with a salt
gun, what are you going to do? Many of these guns look good when
purchased, and don’t display any sign of salt, but then one day
you pull it out of the gun rack and you notice a rust spot where
it shouldn’t be. Now, I know a lot of you folks intentionally
purchase salt guns thinking you can fix it up and come out ahead
of the game. Let me assure you, the repairs are always costly
and can often exceed a recoverable amount. You see, most salt
guns are obsolete and you can’t just call the Browning parts department
and buy a new one. They always have to be made up special. In
our shop, we manufacture new stocks to be an exact copy of an
original stock, but you are purchasing a custom made stock which
gets the cost up. I guess my advise to you is “Buy it right”.
I see a good many overpriced salt guns wherever I go, but you
can’t put much into a gun that needs a wood replacement and metal
refinish. Don’t spend much on them at purchase time, because you
will be spending a lot with me later. Pass up those over-priced
guns.
I
want to make one point concerning Browning’s salt gun policy.
The policy seems to change, but I have been told that the recent
policy is to repair only Superposed shotguns if you are the original
owner. You must be able to prove that you purchased the gun new
and you are still the original owner. Don’t try to pull any tricks,
as they do have good records in Utah, and they know who purchased
the gun new. Superposed were the only gun to have a lifetime guarantee-
tee. Rifles never had this warranty, so your salt T-Bolt won’t
be covered. My advice is to call Browning and ask. If you can
get the gun serviced at no charge to you, I think that is wonderful.
Again, I can assure you that they don’t service salt rifles.
So
let’s talk about the restoration process on a typical salt gun.
In my shop the first thing we do is remove the salt cured stock
and put in on the woodpile next to the fireplace. These stocks
really get a fire going in the fireplace and if you leave the
recoil pad on the stock, it smokes a little, but it gets the fire
going even better. This is the only appropriate use for a salt
gunstock. In my shop, I don’t return them after replacing with
new wood as they just end up in a gun show or installed on some
poor saps gun. After the wood is removed and discarded, we dismantle
the gun and sand blast the rust away from the metal. This exposes
the amount of pitting we will be dealing with. The pits have to
go and we can either polish them away if not very deep, or in
some cases we heli-arc weld the pitting. The metal is annealed
after welding and then the machining process begins to remove
the weld. The metal is reshaped to bring it back to its original
shape and then it is ready to have the engraving touched up if
necessary. We like to replace the wood before we re-blue the metal.
It just makes it easier for us. After the new wood is fit to the
gun, we refinish the metal while the wood is being refinished.
What’s it going to cost you to repair your salt gun? A few months
ago, we took in a salt Pigeon grade Super- posed and both the
stock and the forearm were really hot. Significant metal damage
was present, so lots of work was required to restore it. Replacing
the wood and restoring the metal got the tab up to around $3000.00.
Now you guys know that a 12 gauge Pigeon grade is not worth much
more that this. As I say, you have to buy them right. An average
restoration job on a Safari is around $800.00. Don’t spend much
on these guns when you contemplate purchasing a salt gun. Restoration
work isn’t going to be cheap.
Recently
I had a man send me a real nice 28 gauge Model 12 Winchester.
He had some rusting problems where wood and metal joined together.
He thought he simply needed a re-blue, but what do you think the
real problem was? You guessed it, didn’t you? Seems that Browning
wasn’t the only company to get stuck with salt cured wood. I have
seen a good many Weatherby rifles with salt wood and the old Fajen
and Bishop gunstock companies purchased a lot of it. The poor
soul with the Winchester, had some very pretty wood installed
on his gun years ago. It was either Fajen or Bishop, who did the
work. I’ve seen guns of all descriptions fit with custom salt
wood. Seems like the stuff is everywhere and won’t be going away
anytime soon. I get salt guns into our shop weekly. One would
think that eventually they would run out, but it won’t be in my
lifetime.
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