New Rifle (Project)

A friend of mine gave me some old rifle parts that he found while cleaning up… Its about enough parts to build 1 and  a 1/4 rifles… But also missing some key components. They are both the same model of pump rifle, and looked like .22s, from the bore size… but we couldn’t find a mark on them as to make model or caliber, and the chambers looked too big for even .22 mag.

I later found a mark on one reciever, “L25”

Google is your friend as they say, and after looking up model 25 pump rifles, and going through a Lot of images of different pumps made over the years I found it; They are the Remington model 25. 

Made between 1923 and 1935, only 33,000 ever made(not many for firearms, even for that short time span) and They only came in 25-20, also called .25 Winchester Center Fire or 25
WCF, and 32-20(.32 WCF)

I can’t date these exactly since I can’t find a serial number or date code on either one yet, need to clean them more…( I actually have no idea where a serial number should be on these, on some take downs its inside one receiver half… and under the rust in this case.) 

These are .25-20, (unless of course someone has re-chambered them out bigger at some point). 25-20 is a small rimmed bottle neck cartridge, a hold over from black powder use, it
looks like a .30-30 shell that got wet and shrunk…

((One site I read, someone mentioned that only 12,000 were ever made in
the .25-20 caliber.. I take this info with a grain bucket of salt though))

They came in 24″ and 18″ barrels. Both of the ones I have are about 16″ The shell capacity is soposed to be 10+1.

http://www.remington.com/products/archived/centerfire/pump-action/model-25.aspx

There are some of these in 25-20 for sale online right now in good but
used condition for about $1k… Kinda a rare little bugger it seems! (just my luck… I like rare and limited stuff, but in this case it will be a pain since I have to try to find parts for it!! )

These will Never be worth anywhere close to that, but its interesting to see how rare/popular the model is.

 Got a copy of the original users manual for them from Remingtons’ site(gotta commend them for that, keeping paperwork on something they made 80 to 90 years ago, and having it easily available!)  And I’ve found some exploded views online, although still not really showing the area I need to see apart(it is shown as a completed assembly in the diagrams!)

Winchester and Remington both still make loaded ammo in 25–20, but its bloody expensive, and I can’t find anywhere online that has any in stock… Same with the new un fired brass from both companies. Once fired brass to re-load is obtainable, but its running almost a buck a case!!

I am going to have to come up with 2 or 3 rounds at least, to make sure it feeds and cycles OK if I can put it together. 

My loading manual has load data for 2400, a powder I have on hand, in this shell,
which is a relief over the more obscure powders also listed (especially since we can’t get ANY powder here right now..)!

The one assembled action is fully functional as far as actually shooting is concerned. Anyway as far as I can tell without a shell to put in it to test the extractor and ejector… 

Could easily use it as a single shot as is though, I think.

All of the main feed mechanism in the receiver seems to be there,  all it really needs done is re-build the magazine feed part to make it a repeater like its soposed to be. And re-finish it and the stock of course.

The assembled action looks like a re-barrel job with a clean barrel blank, the other bare receiver has what looks like a shortened, but stock, or stock replacement barrel on it, with all the propper dovetails cut. I’ll see which one has the better bore, and chose that way.

That clean new barrel on the assembled one has a odd muzzle, it is counter bored out to about .300” for the last 3/4” of the barrel tip… Slip in flash hider or silencer maybe?

Numrich/gunparts has Some parts available, some not… about 1/2 of what I would need to put one together isn’t available, but about 1/2 of that I Think I can adapt from other gun models and the rest i can just fabricate from scratch. Honestly I think I can fabricate everything it would need from scratch if I absolutely had to(wouldn’t want to though!!). I guess we’ll see!

First thing is to try to order some brass so I can have dummy rounds to cycle the action and check the chambers with, and in the mean time, hot tank/wash/scrub/sand them to get the rust and grime off.

parts diagrams for refference;

More to come later,
Gary