Cleaning up a Jukar Kentucky Rifle with badly inletted lock

[rshveyda]

I bought a .45 Jukar Kentucky Rifle from gunbroker.com on the cheap and need to clean it up. Barrel looks almost unfired, and it was used as a wallhanger by the guy who I bought it from. It was obviously a kit gun and put together rather sloppily.

My question is can anything be done with a poorly inletted lock seen below? Any way to fill the gaps? This doesn't even look like it was the correct lock for the kit.

I've got some cleaning ahead of me. Will use brass cleaner on the brass. Any good products to clean the stock with? Murphy's Oil Soap? Thanks for any help or general advise.

 

[rshveyda]

It just gets better, looks like whoever put this together blued the barrel without taking it off the gun.

 

[Zonie]

The only thing I can think of would be a lot more work than the gun is worth but, if you just want a project to practice your wood working skills and you don't care about the amount of time and money it would take, read on.

With something as boogered up as this, and the difficulty in getting some wood that matches the existing Beech stock, you could "celebrate" the error by making the gap a uniform, contrasting color.

For an "on the cheap" fix you could set a pair of dividers or a compass with a sharp point in the lead holding leg so that the points are about 3/32" apart.
Using the outside edges of the lock and the sideplate as a guide with one point resting against it, use the other point to scribe a line around the metal part that is that far from the edges.
Then, using an Exacto-Knife, and using vertical plunges, cut completely around the lock or sideplate.
Chisel out the wood that forms the bottom of the mortise to meet your newly defined outline. If you do a good job of this there will be a uniform gap completely around the metal part.

Now you can either use the simple, cheap way of celebrating the error by filling the newly defined gap between the lock or sideplate with some colored epoxy. The color, Black comes to mind. If you use this method don't forget to apply a good coating of grease to all of the surfaces of the metal. The last thing you want to do is to actually epoxy the lock into the stock.

Another way of filling the gap is to find a piece of contrasting wood like walnut.
You would need to cut the thickness of the wood down to maybe 3/16 to 1/4". Then,work the edges down to the wood just bearly slips into the newly enlarged mortise.
Glue or epoxy the walnut into the mortise and when it's dried, file or sand the thickness down to match the depth of the existing, old mortise.
Once this is done you will need to center the lock or sideplate so the exposed walnut is exactly equal, all the way around the outline. If I was doing this, at this stage I would use some "magic glue" to bond the metal to the walnut.
Then, using my Exacto-Knife I would plunge cut straight down into the walnut, using the edge of the lock or sideplate as a guide. After the pocket is cut, use a small mallet or screw driver handle to give the metal part a rap. That will break loose the magic glue so you can finish up the new wood and the beech so their surfaces match exactly.

Whoever owned my Lyman GPR used this method when he installed the contrasting blond wooden diamond in the gun. It's hard to see because the exposed black epoxy is only about 1/32" wide, all the way around.

 

[Barrie Dale]

The Diamond looks very nice on this rifle. Good looking gun indeed.

 

[SDSmlf]

You could replace the stock. https://www.ebay.com/itm/1-CVA-Kent...210516?hash=item48cefb23d4:g:VTUAAOSwgu9bPPTR.
If I’m reading the add right, $20 TYD for ‘new’ stock that has been in storage.

 

[Carbon 6]

You could restock it.
There are usually stocks on ebay,
However, the uglier a Jukar is, the better they tend to shoot.

 

[DOUBLEDEUCE 1]

I would also check to see if the lock has a bridle on it.

 

[Blogman]

However, the uglier a Jukar is, the better they tend to shoot.

I can vouch for that!

 

[rshveyda]

You could restock it.
There are usually stocks on ebay,
However, the uglier a Jukar is, the better they tend to shoot.

Then I'm gonna win some trophies with this one!

 

[SDSmlf]

Then I'm gonna win some trophies with this one!

Pointed you to a $20 EBay stock deal earlier. Could purchase the epoxy for that. Plus it comes inletted for the lock you have.

You could replace the stock. https://www.ebay.com/itm/1-CVA-Kent...210516?hash=item48cefb23d4:g:VTUAAOSwgu9bPPTR.
If I’m reading the add right, $20 TYD for ‘new’ stock that has been in storage.

 

[rshveyda]

Photo of the inside of the lock, which I'm not sure is the one this stock was matched up with. Looks like I've got some cleaning to do.

I also found some initials "G.W. Dodge" and what appears to be a social security number (which I blurred out in the photo) on the underside of the toe plate. Seller, man with a different name, said he bought the gun as an unfinished kit then finished it himself and used it for a wallhanger. I'm speculating G.W. Dodge might have been the first owner, but didn't actually finish the gun? Or maybe someone along the line of ownership simply marks their guns for better identification. The plot thickens.

 

[rshveyda]

Pointed you to a $20 EBay stock deal earlier. Could purchase the epoxy for that. Plus it comes inletted for the lock you have.

The stock is actually in really good shape except for the inletting around the lock. But at $20 shipped that ebay link is pretty tempting. Thank you.

 

[Zonie]

Yup. That's a Jukar lock all right.

Seeing as how this gun hasn't been fired much if at all, the lock is probably still in pretty good shape (except for the rust spots and grunge).

I don't know how much you know about locks but this lock is typical of what they call "an unbridled lock". That basically means there isn't anything to support the inner end of the tumbler. Without anything to support it, the tumbler (the part that rotates and has the half cock and full cock notch cut into it) relys only on the fit of its shaft with the hole in the lock plate to keep it aligned. That's all right if the lockplate is carburized and hardened but the folks at Jukar didn't bother with adding this expense. That results in a hard tumbler rotating in a soft steel hole and it doesn't take very many shots before the hole will start to wear.
The length of time it takes to wear out the hole depends on how well it is lubricated. Because of this, when your done cleaning up things I recommend dropping the lock into a can of 90 weight gear oil. The kind that is used to lubricate the differential in a car or truck. It can't solve the soft hole issue but it is an "extreme pressure" lubricant that will do a lot to prevent the hole from wearing out.

The early CVA locks used the same lock and they too had similar problems.
In the early '80's, CVA redesigned the lock to add a "bridle" that engages a pin like protrusion on the axis of the tumbler to support the end of the tumbler. The bridle is screwed to the lock plate.
These later locks are pretty good and the bridle fixed the hole wearing problem.

 

[Sidney Smith]

Restain the stock a dark color and use the epoxy method mentioned above and those gaps in the mortices will all bit disappear to the eye.

 

[Ames]

With something as boogered up as this, and the difficulty in getting some wood that matches the existing Beech stock, you could "celebrate" the error by making the gap a uniform, contrasting color.

I like your thinking. I've brought up this point before, but fear it was lost.
If you cant hide it to perfection, celebrate the error and bring about a new look to it.
The error is there, you cant erase it, ....so....

 

[Zonie]

Celebrating the error to make it look like it was a planned design is an old idea. It has been used for everything from guns to furniture to clothing and a lot of other areas where people have made stuff.

I've known people to say, "Well, look at that! I wouldn't have ever thought about doing something like that but, doesn't it look nice? I wonder why the builder went to all that work?" Little did they know it was to cover up a screw up.

I know that there are some mountain rifles that have a formed brass plate on the underside of the forward grip area on the stock. These have been called a "Stock protector" or "saddle protector" and they do work nicely for the man who rests his gun on the front of a saddle as he is riding along.
The thing of it is though, some of these protectors were installed to cover up the place that the ramrod hole broke out of the bottom of the stock.

Here is an example of a protection plate I put on a .54 caliber TC Hawken kit I built.
No. There isn't a break out in the stock. I just wanted to install it so the gun would be a little different from the run of the mill kit TC's out there.

 

[Sidney Smith]

There are no errors in life, but there are a lot of work arounds!.

 

[Grenadier1758]

Its not considered a "screw up" if you can recover from it.

 

[rshveyda]

So, update. I took the gun apart and cleaned all parts. I scrubbed out the barrel which had just a tiny bit of surface rust, then lubed and reassembled. I'll eventually reblue the barrel and refinish the stock, but took it up to the range today and fired 6 shots though it of pillow ticking patched .45 round ball with 60 gr of FFFg. All using a rest. Those are 1" squares, at 25 yards on a rest, and the gun shoots to to point of aim. The front blade of the open sights almost covers the center dot. So someone had already sighted the gun in pretty well. The sixth shot was at a 8"x8" metal plate at 100 yards that I got lucky and hit squarely. She's ugly, but she shoots. I can't complain.

 

[Treestalker]

The U.S. Army has a saying, "If it looks stupid, but it works, it's not stupid."