Which gunsmith for a defarb?

[rca53]

Re: Which gunsmith for a defarb?

I purchased a 42 springfield from a member off this forum, already defarbed by Lodgewood, it looks great. Had a first hand look
at "ETYank"s enfield defarbed by Todd Watts ,when at Resaca with SCAR, excellant job done there as well.
Just my opinion.

[Texas Pard]

Re: Which gunsmith for a defarb?

There has always seemed to be a lot of support for Todd Watts on here for his Enfield defarbing efforts. I have visited with him and he is a heck of a nice guy, but I will stop short of saying he is the best defarber out there. I think he does a great job on his stocks, but from what I observed, the barrels and hardware do not appear to be cold rust blued (I am curious to what media or method he uses), and his lock plates are not case hardened, as per the originals. Most glaringly to me where the stampings on the lock plates, Mr. Watts uses stamps (and its obvious), while the originals all display engraved lock plate markings. I have also noticed that the double line engraving on a few of his lock plates that I have viewed, leave something to be desired.

Zimmerman does and great job. He cold rust blues his Enfields, correctly charcoal case hardens his lock plates and hammers, and now engraves the lock plate markings. However, you better tell him exactly what you want done and follow it up with “do not take any liberties”, or he will give you a regular British Army marked Enfield with WD stamps and/or with a hodgepodge of other markings (mostly incorrect for CW, or the combination of such markings would be incorrect). Also, Zimmerman like to blue ramrods, so you would need to tell him to leave bright.

Aside from Lodgewood, another good option is Tim(?) Shultz /Company Quartermaster. He engraves his plates and the bluing and case hardening appear to be correct as well.

Weldon Svoboda

[BobRoeder]

Re: Which gunsmith for a defarb?

I noticed no one has mentioned 61 Springfield defarbs, the original poster did not specify which type of gun he was looking at. In my experience that seems to be a major factor as evidenced by the large number of posts focusing on the P53.

I recently received my third M61 Springfield defarb. IMO the problem with a defarbed M61 Springfield (also probably true with other types of weapons) is the basic product the defarber is working with, which will effect the end result.

My first M61 Springfield was a Miroku M1863 Springfield (this was before the M61's were produced) that we remade into a M1861 with the correct components (i.e. new barrel with correct drum, correct hammer, and remarked lockplate). I wish I had that gun back but it was sold 30 years ago. My second M61 was a defarbed Army Sport from James River Armory. The defarb was very nicely done - especially liked the "1862 Bridesburg" lock. This gun suffered the usual problems of the Italian repops - the wood of the stock, over sized barrel and overall weight of the gun, etc, etc. - but it was still pretty nice, though there was a large knot-like blemish between the third and first barrel bands, something JRA could not really do anything about.

I just received my third M61 defarb from Lodgewood. Truthfully I'm not terribly impressed. Some of the problems were likely problems with the original product being worked on but I felt things could have been done to fix some of the problems. I should say I purchased the total defarb package. Evident problems - the second barrel band did not fit behind the barrel band spring properly and kept slipping off, so I had to switch out barrel bands between the first and second bands. The stock was nicely reshaped at the barrel tang, wrist and butt, but there is a gap right at the end the tang and the reshaping of the tang so it would fit the profile of the reshaped stock is rather sloppy (flat and uneven) which, besides not looking right, causes the tang screw head to sit quite high (have to fix this myself). Lastly, the reworked swivels (screws replaced with pins) were left in very rough shape with sharp edges and grind marks on each side of the pinned sections. There are a few other issues but I'll stop here.

So, to the original poster, it is probably best if you are able to choose the gun you are going to have defarbed to check for wood to metal fit, blemishes in the wood, and any other problems that might affect the final product. Try to see work that was done on similar muskets/rifle-musket to see if you will be happy with the work.

Cheers,