I inherited this rifle, it's...old. It's a little beat. It's a pretty neat rifle though, manufactured in 1918 from what I can tell. Unfortunately my grandfather had a side mounted scope put on it, probably way back in the 40's or 50's ish. The scope was an abomination and I've removed it. However, I'm left with 4 threaded holes. If I can find some tighter tolerance 3A screws to put in with locktight, and grind flush I think it would work and be a difficult to discern repair. Especially if I reblue the gun. The finish is nearly gone and I'm pretty undecided on whether I should refinish it or not (I think I would use the laurel mountain forge rust bluing system, I've used it before with great results). It has some significant scratches, dings and gouges. I don't think it has any real collector value after having the receiver drilled, so I don't see a downside to refinishing. I wouldn't try to get out the deepest dings and gouges, it would still have some "character". I wanted to get some opinions from people that know a thing or two about these old guns though.
It's absolutely filthy, it's probably literally never been cleaned. My grandfather didn't believe in cleaning guns, so it's been this messy for a good 70 years or so I bet
. My first step will be disassembling and cleaning it. The action is gummy and hard to work as it is.
Pics:
Edit: fixed the date of manufacture, also added pictures on page 2 with my repairs and cleanup.