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Wood erosion

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eggwelder

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I have an original .58 Remington “Zouave”. It was refinished before i got it. What i have noticed is that there is a significant amount of wood loss around the sides of the tang. Looks to have been slowly burned away by the musket caps over time. I`m thinking of judiciously patching this part with new wood in order to preserve the functionality of the piece. What would the original Stock wood have been? Thoughts?
 
While I don't like the idea of modifying an original gun because of the historic nature of them, I once owned a Springfield 1842 percussion musket that needed some serious help around the tang.
Someone, years ago, used Plastic Wood to try to build up the stock around the barrel tang. After years, the Plastic Wood crumbled leaving a real mess.

To fix the situation I removed a lot of the wood and all of the plastic wood and then used a piece of walnut to replace it.

1842 001A.jpg

1842 005.jpg


After removing the old repair I filed the surfaces flat and installed the new walnut.
1842TEXT10.jpg

1842TEXT11.jpg


While doing this I learned that 150 year old walnut is weaker and much easier to sand so getting the new walnut sanded to shape without removing any of the original wood wasn't easy. All in all though, even though the new wood has a different color than the old wood, the gun looks a lot better than it did before I started.
 
The only place you should see wood erosion from being burnt by caps is right behind the bolster and that usually isn't extensive at all. Can you provide us with a photo? It would have to be pretty bad to affect its shootablity. Before I replaced wood on an original I would look at glass bedding the area under the tang and the rear of the breech possibly going forward a couple of inches under the barrel using colored epoxy. That should reinforce the area and serve to transfer the recoil to solid wood. Done carefully it wouldn't be visible and you could shoot it too.
 
Sorry, forgot I posted this. Will get a photo up this evening to show. It is worse on the lock side.
took a chip out of the stock behind the tang, lost the piece, so that will need a little patch too
 
I have an original .58 Remington “Zouave”. It was refinished before i got it. What i have noticed is that there is a significant amount of wood loss around the sides of the tang. Looks to have been slowly burned away by the musket caps over time. I`m thinking of judiciously patching this part with new wood in order to preserve the functionality of the piece. What would the original Stock wood have been? Thoughts?
I have an original 1841 Mississippi rifle with a burned away are to the rear of the bolster. Someone, many years ago, I think, nailed a small piece of thin steel (food can?) on top to protect it. I’m just leaving it there
 
Here is the the photo promised. You can see on the right side the fairly large gap. The black line is where wood used to be. The chip behind the tang is my fault, not tight enough tang bolt first time i fired it
 
Here is the the photo promised. You can see on the right side the fairly large gap. The black line is where wood used to be. The chip behind the tang is my fault, not tight enough tang bolt first time i fired it
Looks like the left side was already glass bedded..
 
if that is glass, it is a super thin layer in that spot only, the wood comes up in the barrel channel to the top. I think it is blackened wood with tru oil on it.
 
thanks for the replies , will probably give it a British Army armorers type wood repair.
 
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