January, 2004

These are pictures of a Winchester Model 60A given to me by my grandfather. He'd recently found it muzzle down in a soaked rifle bag in a closet where a water leak had gotten to it and severly rusted the barrel. He says he bought this rifle new 70 years ago, which would be about 1934. From some searching I've done, it appears Winchester made this model from about 1932 to 1939 and sold about 165,000 of them. This 23" barrel version was only made in 1932-1933. After 1933, all 60A's were made with a 27" barrel. The first info I'd found said only 6100 of them had been made, but that number appears to refer to the 60A Target version which had the longer (27" vs 23") barrel and nicer target sights. Since this rifle's been out of production for so long, it's hard to find information about it online. One of the things I think is neat about this rifle is, it's so old, it doesn't have a serial number. I'd shot this rifle on several occasions when I was much younger, but hadn't seen it for 20 years or so. Before giving it to me, my grandfather used steel wool to try to remove some of the rust. That's why there's so much bare metal in the before pictures. These are pictures I took before doing anything other than wiping it down with some CLP.

As far as I know, given it's condition, the rifle's "book value" is (or at least was) practically nothing. However, it has great sentimental value to me, and I considered it both a challenge and a mission to restore it (or at least clean it up as much as possible) before the rust had a chance to get any worse. Fortunately, the wood stock doesn't appear to have any water damage. It is a little dinged up and the finish is quite worn in some places, but I think that's to be expected from a 70 year old wood rifle stock.

My biggest concern with the rifle's condition was that there was some rust in the end of the bore...maybe the last inch or so. I did some searching online and decided to give Novum Solutions' Blue Wonder cleaner and bluing products a try. When the products arrived, I went right to work cleaning the bore. After two nights of scrubbing and a day of letting Blue Wonder Cleaner sit in the end of the bore, I decided it was clean enough to test fire. I was worried that the pitting in the bore where it had rusted might cause a loss of accuracy. It didn't seem to. The rifle still groups fairly well. I had so much fun test firing it, I must have put about 100 rounds through it before packing up and getting back to work on it.

So, the next step was to totally strip the exterior (remove all the rust, what little was left of original bluing, and clean the pitted areas) and reblue it. I spent most of a Saturday stripping it (using Blue Wonder Cleaner and green ScotchBrite pads), and most of Sunday bluing it. After the first application of bluing, here's what it looks like restored. I think it's a huge improvement. I could stop at this point, but I think I will apply another coat of bluing to the barrel to darken it and touch up a spot I mostly missed under the rear sight.

BTW, all of the images have been brightened considerably in gimp (sort of like photoshop for unix) to bring out more detail. The blueing is actually darker than the pictures make it look. Also, all of the pictures on the group pages are scaled down to 1/4 original size. If you click on a 1/4 size image, you'll get a page with a 1/2 size image. Click the 1/2 size image, and you'll get the full size version.

Jun, 2007

After enjoying this rifle for several years, I decided the stock needed some TLC. The original finish had begun to flake off in a few areas. This didn't do much for its looks or much to protect the 75 year old wood. I determined the original finish was shellac by wiping at it with a patch soaked in ethanol. Shellac is ethanol soluble. Other common alcohols like isopropyl (rubbing alcohol) may dissolve shellac only slightly or not at all. So, using ethanol and some rags, I removed the shellac and then gave it a few days to dry. Then I applied several coats of boiled linseed oil (BLO), the first of which were BLO cut 1:1 with low odor mineral spirits (LOMS). Lots of info can be found on techniques for doing this by searching for tips on refinishing old milsurp rifles. I followed up the BLO with some pure tung oil (not a tung oil "finish" which is usually varnish with some hint of tung oil in it), and then some Howard's Feed N Wax. Here are some before / during and after pictures of the stock.

Jul, 2009

I got an email from someone who'd found this page who had a model 60A that had lost its rear sight adjustment blade. He asked if I could supply some closeups of the blade so he could make (or have made, I forget which) a reproduction for his rifle. So I shot these pictures for him and measured the important dimensions with a digital caliper.