Hey gang, I wanted to share the the second BSA Martini Project I took on (mentioned it in my project I post)! Again, these are my favorite .22 rifles ever made... anyone who has shot one will attest to the quality and accuracy of them. With that said, this was a lot more work than the first one... however, IMO it is now better than the day it left the factory and looks better than the first project! I have not seen a better MKII than the two I currently own The coolest thing about this project is that I did nearly all the work on this rifle.
I did not want to clutter up the entire thread with pictures, but I have the entire project documented if anyone is interested in seeing it all the way through (prep work, etc). I can just link you over to another forum where the project was originally posted at... The other cool thing about this rifle is that it is a bit more rare than the last as its a "light pattern" meaning its about 12lbs vs 16lbs and the barrel is around 22" vs 27"(ish). Thanks to Rik Mitchell on the help with the stock and Brandan Bunker who dipped it in his blueing tanks.
All other work including prep on the metal was done by me... If anyone is interested the barrel and receiver were polished to 800 grit and took a heck of a lot to get the pits out.
Cundiff5535 wrote:I did not want to clutter up the entire thread with pictures, but I have the entire project documented if anyone is interested in seeing it all the way through (prep work, etc). I can just link you over to another forum where the project was originally posted at.
If you want to clutter the post with more images I don't think anyone here would be against it... it would be just the opposite!
james Storm wrote:How did you polish out the rust spots and keep the printing on the steel so sharp?
Hey James... I seriously have well over 30 hours of flat hand sanding on the second "light pattern" Martini (which was the one that was far worse). I took a flat metal block and start sanding (John Harrison sells one on his website)... because there is no flex you will not dish out the holes and the printing on the rifle stays intact... I started to see some light washing on the MKII printing so I avoided that area as much as possible.
There was a lot of rust and pitting near those letters so, I changed from a large steel block to a much smaller one and worked very carefully around the letters until I was able to get it all! I then went back to the large block and reworked the sanding lines so that they were even and looked correct.
To refinish and restore a rifle the correct way takes a lot of time, care, and patience. Trust me, there were times were I wanted to say "forget this, its good enough". I am pretty OCD though and knew that I wouldn't be happy if it was not perfect once I got done. So I decided that when I got frustrated, I would just quit for the day/night and try again the following day. Probably took me a month or so in all to get the metal the way I wanted.
The coolest thing about this project is that I did nearly all the work on this rifle. 
