Remington Model 10

So this was a fun gun to work on. A friend of a neighbor found out that I was a gunsmith and had an interest in refinishing old firearms, so he brought over an old Remington Model 10 that had been in his family since the late 50’s/early 60’s. It has been his grandfathers, then his fathers and now it was his. He used it to hunt duck, although it had seized up on him the last time he took it out. The wood was beat up on it and the bulk of the finish for the wood and metal were in a bad way. When I pulled it apart, I found quite a bit of rust and a few other oddities, like random coins in the tubular magazine, and a piece of cloth in the buttstock with some faded writing on it. I used the vinegar trick to strip the metal and used a trick I saw from Eric (better known as Iraqveteran8888 on youtube.com) to strip the wood. Heat up a big pot of water, dump it in a pan, put the wood furniture over the water and spray it with krud kutter and let the steam and cleaner do their thing. Eventually, after multiple passes with a scrub brush, all the finish and stain will seep out of the wood and you can start fresh when it is dry.

I used true oil to bring the wood furniture back to life and man, it was glowing by the time I was done. Thats the thing about those older guns, they usually have great walnut stocks and fore ends. As for the metal, after stripping it down and then degreasing and gassing it out, I sand blasted it and coated it. I used Cerakote’s C series, which is their air-dry stuff. It is a great product, however there are a few cautions that come with it. First off, it is not as scratch resistant as the H series. Second, it takes a full seven days to cure. Cerakote says you can reassemble the weapon after 24 hours, but I always wait the full seven days before messing with the parts, if I can help it, that is.

The customer was very grateful, as the gun looked much better than he thought it could and he told me as much. A situation like this will never not bring a smile to my face. This was a gun that had been hunting waterfowl for around 60 years, brought back to life by a little elbow grease, Cerakote and true oil. I felt so good about how happy he was that I almost felt guilty about taking his money. Almost. He threw in an extra couple of bucks on top of what I quoted him, which I put to good use at the beer store down the street. The rest of the money went into more Cerakote. I know there is a certain section of the population that will look at what I just wrote and hate me for marring a classic with modern coatings and such, but they can go fly a kite. A good looking gun is a good looking gun, period. And this gun looks good.