Thread: Grandads Model 70 restoration

Hi guys, some of you may remember my post about my plans to restore my grandads rifle I inherited last year. Thanks to some inspiration from forum member Williamfga restoring his own model 70 I decided to get into it myself.. I had some wise words of advise from Micky Duck and again a huge thankyou to Williamfga for help along the way and the legend also sent me some aluminium tubing for the pillars and Devcon to bed the rifle, much appreciated!

So some more background on the rifle, my grandad brought it in 1988 upgrading from his Parker hale 303 for his main hunting rifle. He has also admitted to have never taken the poor thing out of its stock in 35 years… I was lucky enough to shoot my first deer with this particular rifle, a large spiker in Taumarunui around 18 years ago. Let’s just say it was in a well loved condition when I received it.

I wanted to restore the rifle to a somewhat original state but with a few modern improvements and I am no gunsmith nor handyman just a beekeeper giving something I’m passionate about a lash, I’m super happy how the rifle turned out.

Things I’ve done include
Fitting a limbsaver recoil pad
Sanding down the stock and removing the varnish (I had to sand the stock to fit the limbsaver)
Tidying up the checkering
Coated the stock with boiled linseed oil, a few coats on but will add more in time
Free floated the barrel, the stock fore end was rubbing on the barrel something chronic
Aluminium pillars
Bedded the action with Devcon plastic steel
Had DPT thread the barrel and custom make me a flush fitting thread cap which is almost un noticeable
Cerakote NZ in Tauranga cerakoted all metal work in midnight blue
And finally replaced the old redfield 2-7 with a new Leupold VX-1 3-9x40 (will have to do for now)

I presented the rifle all finished to my grandad on Christmas Day at my house and he near shed a tear, said he was super proud and happy the rifle went to the right home, he hopes one day I can hand it down to my own grandson.

Over all it’s been a really enjoyable experience and I’m stoked with the rifle, it’s shooting factory precision hunter 145gr well under moa at 100y, what more can you ask for!

I’m going to try post photos of the process now but have had trouble in the past and trouble again right now attempting to post photos from my iPad, bare with me and I’ll get them up one way or another.

I hope some of you enjoy the read and any comments are welcome, cheers fellas