1983 Lyman GPR worm eaten mess

Hello Everyone! I just finished a restore/repair to a Lyman GPR I bought recently. I looked good but had a cracked stock, wood gouged out under the lock, around the lock and a notch where someone mounted a side sight. The crack looked repairable with old glue which had come loose but I found the lower 1/5th of this stock was so riddled with woodworms that it could not be pulled back together and that light sanding exposed numerous woodworm tracks and sawdust rendering it weakened , un-useable and unstable to accept recoil especially with that style butt plate. I decided to replace the area damaged by woodworms and label it the FrankenHawken . If I never see another wood worm riddled piece of wood it will be too soon.
The Lyman needed :
Inletting the tang to the proper depth
Adjusting the tang face angle
Repairing the trigger group
Inletting the trigger group to the correct depth
Re-working the snail
Drilling and tapping the snail’s screw to 10/32 and replacing the torx screw with Track’s (re-worked) drum screw
Removing the accuglass thick bedding Bubba did in lieu of correctly inletting the tang to the correct depth (real fun job)
Then the wood work:
Removing large botched chunk from under the lock and barrel channel and fitting correct replacement
Patching in stock notch for side sight
Patching in missing piece from the lower lock area
Patching in a botched mess in the rear side of the barrel channel
Removing the lower 1/5th the the Purina
Woodworm Chow stock and replacing it with American black walnut.
CRIMONY! What a mess it was but yet it has a pretty good bore!
Looking forward to about an additionally six coats of oil finish on both stocks and calling it good enough. I cannot even think how many hours that thing took.
Snooterpup

The Lyman is done with the exception of multiple coats of oil finish. Turned our better than I expected. Got a pretty good stain match with Laurel Mountain Forge’s
American walnut, Homer Dangler’s dark brown and a witches brew of Fiebings Cordovan leather dye and black. I think it came out with the desired “old walnut”
look that I was after. There are five patches including the major butt stock issue. Multiple fitting and Bubba corrections to fix. I’m leaving the “old patina” on the metal surfaces alone. I did want it to look used but not abused.
More photos...
Thanks for looking and thanks to Dave Person for the encouragement to just do it!

you sir are a master magician! nice finish to a nightmare!

That is some mighty fine craftsmanship.

Congrats on a job well done.

So many of our firearms are thrown in trash bins because folks refuse to take the time to resurrect them.

Bravo!!!

Sow's ear to a silk [slick] purse. Great restoration. Polecat

You did a bang up job. Congratulations!

Good work.

Snooter.......I saw the exact stock toe repair you did , on an original German Jaeger stock. Had a friend working at Colonial Williamsburg gun shop , and he said , back in the day , they had good hide glue to replace damaged gun stocks Good to see there's another Frankinrifle repair guy , on board. I have a couple cripples , i'm fixing as well. What fun...........oldwood

Very nice. Curious did you use wood pegs to help attach the repair toe? I have done this with good results on both MLs and military unmentionables. The WWI Imperial German arsenals and the WW2 Finns were masters at this on the latter.
On ML;s Most pegs can be hidden under the toe plate and have seen extra long plates used when a 3rd peg is required. Your work is excellent and almost undetctable from factory stocks having naturally occurring grain patterns in the toe area.

Thank you for your kind words. I really did think about wooden pegs and went so far as to start drilling for them but some of the most trusted advice on the forum recommended Titebond II or Titebond III ultimate. The thought was with just a static joint, and no real stress, this glue is stronger than the wood structure itself so I opted for the “no peg” repair. I did a very small bit of faux striping to the replacement part to blend in with the existing wood. Since completion I have removed the “black powder only” warning as well as other stampings. I did leave the serial number, the ”Lyman - Middlefield Connecticut” and Great Plains Rifle .54” as well as the proof mark on the breech plug. I moved the Italian date code to the barrel bottom and re-aged those steel areas with Kibler’s JAX Black. Overall, I am happy with the way this turned out.

Thanks again,
Snooterpup

You, sir, have some serious skills. Very well done!

That is an outstanding job of restoring and saving that stock. Kudos to you.

Well done, with a fantastic result!

Snooterpup said:

Hello Everyone! I just finished a restore/repair to a Lyman GPR I bought recently. I looked good but had a cracked stock, wood gouged out under the lock, around the lock and a notch where someone mounted a side sight. The crack looked repairable with old glue which had come loose but I found the lower 1/5th of this stock was so riddled with woodworms that it could not be pulled back together and that light sanding exposed numerous woodworm tracks and sawdust rendering it weakened , un-useable and unstable to accept recoil especially with that style butt plate. I decided to replace the area damaged by woodworms and label it the FrankenHawken . If I never see another wood worm riddled piece of wood it will be too soon.
The Lyman needed :
Inletting the tang to the proper depth
Adjusting the tang face angle
Repairing the trigger group
Inletting the trigger group to the correct depth
Re-working the snail
Drilling and tapping the snail’s screw to 10/32 and replacing the torx screw with Track’s (re-worked) drum screw
Removing the accuglass thick bedding Bubba did in lieu of correctly inletting the tang to the correct depth (real fun job)
Then the wood work:
Removing large botched chunk from under the lock and barrel channel and fitting correct replacement
Patching in stock notch for side sight
Patching in missing piece from the lower lock area
Patching in a botched mess in the rear side of the barrel channel
Removing the lower 1/5th the the Purina
Woodworm Chow stock and replacing it with American black walnut.
CRIMONY! What a mess it was but yet it has a pretty good bore!
Looking forward to about an additionally six coats of oil finish on both stocks and calling it good enough. I cannot even think how many hours that thing took.
Snooterpup

Click to expand...

Nice work and skills.

Outstanding job. Gives the rest of us some encouragement to try.

I actually like solving a crappy stock jigsaw puzzle, I get frustrated but making a repair invisible gives me great satisfaction.

Nice overhaul!

well done

Very impressive work!!

Snooterpup said:

Hello Everyone! I just finished a restore/repair to a Lyman GPR I bought recently. I looked good but had a cracked stock, wood gouged out under the lock, around the lock and a notch where someone mounted a side sight. The crack looked repairable with old glue which had come loose but I found the lower 1/5th of this stock was so riddled with woodworms that it could not be pulled back together and that light sanding exposed numerous woodworm tracks and sawdust rendering it weakened , un-useable and unstable to accept recoil especially with that style butt plate. I decided to replace the area damaged by woodworms and label it the FrankenHawken . If I never see another wood worm riddled piece of wood it will be too soon.
The Lyman needed :
Inletting the tang to the proper depth
Adjusting the tang face angle
Repairing the trigger group
Inletting the trigger group to the correct depth
Re-working the snail
Drilling and tapping the snail’s screw to 10/32 and replacing the torx screw with Track’s (re-worked) drum screw
Removing the accuglass thick bedding Bubba did in lieu of correctly inletting the tang to the correct depth (real fun job)
Then the wood work:
Removing large botched chunk from under the lock and barrel channel and fitting correct replacement
Patching in stock notch for side sight
Patching in missing piece from the lower lock area
Patching in a botched mess in the rear side of the barrel channel
Removing the lower 1/5th the the Purina
Woodworm Chow stock and replacing it with American black walnut.
CRIMONY! What a mess it was but yet it has a pretty good bore!
Looking forward to about an additionally six coats of oil finish on both stocks and calling it good enough. I cannot even think how many hours that thing took.
Snooterpup

Click to expand...

Some years back I asked at Dixon's why they had so many GPR stocks on the rack in the rear of the shop; that's when they said they were a factory-authorized Lyman facility. But why so many stocks? Never asked, maybe it was just something that always needed replacing. Wonder where the thing was stored that it had wood worms? Good job!