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Posted: 5/8/2010 7:34:17 PM EDT
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One of my Soldiers recently inherited a very low serial number winchester model 61 pump .22. He has asked me to re-blue it and re-finish the stock. Befor you flame me, I informed him that doing so would ruin the value of the gun, which I think is valued around $500 or more, but he has no plans to sell it. he just wants it to look nice because it belonged to his grandfather and it was the first gun he ever shot.
Anyway, I'm having a heck of a time finding a manual for this gun online, all I can find is links to model 61's for sale. Anybody got a good source for take down instructions befor I screw this thing up? Thanks |
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You will have to order it. Winchester will send it to you.
Click where it says "owner manual order form" http://www.winchesterguns.com/customerservice/ownersmanuals/index.asp But before you re-blue it, what is wrong with it? Is it tarnished, rusted, pitted, have a patina? A lot of surface rust will clean-up with a little oil and a lot of rubbing. Pitting, not so much. Old wood wakes-up really well too. If it is brown with a patina, leave it alone, can't do anything anyways. If it is pitted, you may want to re-finish it and polish out the pitting. But if it is pitted, even a dunk in the royal blue tank at Colt with 8 hours of polishing, will not make that gun perfect. As far as collector value is concerned, it probably has little to none. The 61 is in high demand and they sure are not making any more of them, but they are still relatively common. A 61 in 97% to 100% condition with or without box and accessories will go for TOP dollar, but any "well loved" example will go for $400-600 tops with rare configurations going for another 20-30% more. Barn, basement, and closet rats trade hands for no more than $400 retail, less FTF or trades. Obviously the gun has sentimental value exceeding the financial value, so get the gun to the condition that they guy remembers it in from when he was around it. I'd say to see what you can do by just cleaning it up first. Probably lots of dried oil residue that needs to be worked out of it, so plan on some very very fine grit sandpaper, some canned air, flannel patches, non-areosol gun lube of choice, and go at it! Any serious rust spots use copper wool on it with oil. Might have a beauty of a gun under there 
Best of luck. You are doing a really nice thing. Inherited guns just "feel good", which is great because the Model 61 is one of those guns that just feels and fits so right. Very fun to use. Has an air of quality in it that you don't see in products today, well not the same type of "quality" . |
Oh, this took me about 14 seconds of google  I'm not saying that to be smart, I guess I'm just a different generation 
I don't think it is the "official" manual, but it should be good enough. http://lunarhalo.com/WinchesterModel61/ Download the whole PDF here http://lunarhalo.com/WinchesterModel61/WinchesterModel61.pdf |
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Thanks, yeah i found that manual after I posted this, but I think I'll go ahead and order the official manual from Winchester and give it to the owner when I'm done.
This gun has seen some heavy use over the years. It is a 1932 production with a four digit serial number under 3000, so if it was in pristine condition it would be worth some coin. The stock has some cracks in it, the metal is completely without blueing in some spots, and there are many dents and dings in the wood work. The guy just wants it restored to a "like new" appearance so he can keep it in his gun cabinet and look at it, not ever sell it and probably very rarely shoot it. It's gonna be a big project for me. I want to do it right because of the emotional attachment the kid has to this gun. Thanks for the help. |
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