Poor Marlin 783 stock.

[GunnyUSMC]

It's a shame what some people will do to a nice rifle in the name of custom work.
This is the story of a poor Marlin 783 that got another chance.
about three years ago I walked into a gun shop to have a look around. One of the guys there knows that I like 22s and work on stocks. When he saw me walk in he said to me, "I got you a 22 for your collection". He then pulled a bolt action Marlin off the rack and handed it to me. Oh the poor thing, I wanted to cry due to the un godly things that were done to it. There was wood filler and something else in a large area on the right side of the buttstock. There were small holes all over the stock. It looked like some one had used tacks to decorate the stock at one time. The tacks had been removed and the holes filled with a light colored wood filler. The right front of the stock had been glued back on with wood glue. I handed it back to him and said no thank you.
He then said he would let me have it for $100. I told him I would think about it and left the store.
Latter that day I went back to the store. I left again with the rifle in hand and $98 less in my pocket.
The rifle sat with my other project guns for about a year and almost forgoten.

A gun could get lost in this place.


Here are a few pics of the Marlin.

[GunnyUSMC]

First off I needed to know if the stock was salvageable so, I stripped it.


There were two deep holes and deep cut ugly checkering of some kind on the right side of the buttstock. I have no clue why this was done to the stock, but it appeares that someone was trying to fix something that someone else had done to the stock before.



After taking a good look at the stock I decided that I would try and save it.

The big issue was the buttstock. I looked at it like it had cancer and cut out the ugly and replace it with good wood.




I used Acraglas to fill the tack holes and chips.

[GunnyUSMC]

I also found another crack in the stock. It was an easy fix.

[GunnyUSMC]

I stained the stock with Chestnut Ridge Military Stock Stain and applied the first coat of BLO.
It still needed more hand rubbed coats of BLO and a wax top coat, but it looked like it was going to look nice.

[GunnyUSMC]

It took me about three weeks to finished up the Marlin . How do you think it looks?
I wanted to keep that BTDT Look (Been There, Done That) because I don't plan on refinishing the metal.

[Chaos47]

Looks good! The spliced section is actually kind of interesting and in the 2nd to last photo not even really that apparent at a distance.

I would have just probably got a NOS stock at Numrich but that would have cost half as much as you paid for the whole rifle. That and I don't have the skills to have spliced in a new section like you did.

[gc44]

Typical, standard issue United States Marine Corps Gunnery Sargent. Finds a crappy situation, charges into it, and all things become right in the world, once again. Great job, Gunny...my hat's off to you.