Featured Gun: The Richardson Guerrilla Gun
A Tribute to the Richardson Guerrilla Gun part 1
A Tribute to the Richardson Guerrilla Gun part 2
A Tribute to the Richardson Guerrilla Gun part 3
Now that it is time to refinish the wood and paint the metal parts... I wanted to make a couple small modifications....
cutting two grooves in the breech allow you to quickly remove spent shells.
I also wanted to add a front bead, even though the originals didn't have one, and frankly didn't need one, I decided it would be a small but nice upgrade.
I had this brass screw in my parts bin, that should work perfectly. I wrapped the threads with tape and chucked it into my drill press. On high speed I used a file to shape it into a dome.
Turns out this was not brass, but brass plated, oh well, I am going to use it anyway, here it is next to an unmodified one. I left a small groove which I will align with the bore.
I then cut it short with the Dremel tool
As it turns out I didn't have the correct size tap for this screw, so I drilled the barrel with a 3/16 drill bit, which was a snug fit and after painting the barrel, I glued it in place with JB weld.
Back to the stock....
After sanding with 60 grit, I moved to 100 grit, then 225 grit. I then wetted the wood to "dewhisker" it.
I then sanded lightly with 320 grit and applied 1 coat of Minwax "Special Walnut" stain
After wiping off the excess I let the stock sit for 8 hours, then applied the first coat of Minwax Polyurethane clear semi-gloss
So I sanded it back down with 500 grit sand paper and wiped it down with acetone.
I had sanded through the stain in a couple of places, so I reapplied some of the Minwax "Special Walnut"
I then broke out the Birchwood-Casey Tru-Oil and rubbed in the first coat, working in all directions, rubbing until the stock was almost dry, then checked for missed areas and any runs
Here it is after 4 coats
I then painted the metal parts with RustOLeum textured black spray paint
These last two show the position of the trigger when the barrel is ahead of the trigger lock and when fully seated
Before publishing this final post I was able to take the gun out and shoot it. While we got reliable primer strikes and the gun fired without any problems, the breech face wasn't supporting the entire base of the cartridge, so we got some bulging.
This is really only an issue if you plan on reloading the spent shells.
For the record we were shooting Federal Top Gun target loads, 1oz, #8 shot.
Costs for the build:
Stock: $0 (broken Beeman air gun stock)
1" pipe (receiver): $6.78
3/4" pipe (barrel): $10.88
nuts and bolts: $5.90
Trigger Parts: $1.00
Stain: $0 (already had)
Grand Total: $24.56
Here is my version compared to an original
