Birdhunter50
(.375 member)
21/07/14 11:15 PM
Re: newbie looking for donor shotgun

It has been my experience that Pawn Shops are poor places to look for gun bargains. First of all, many guns that are pawned have something wrong with them to begin with and that can add to the cost of the conversion. Second, the pawn shop owners usually don't know that much about the guns they have and they are almost always priced too high for what they are.

I encourage you to go ahead with your plan to convert a gun but you need to realise that it is something of a long project requiring lots of work and effort and a serious investment in parts and labor. If you don't have a metal lathe you will either need to buy one or better yet, find a guy who owns one and really knows how to run it. Pay him to help you with the monoblock and the barrels.

If you have not had any experience soldering steel parts together, you will want to find some scrap steel to practice on and learn to do it well. Keeping everything clean and well fluxed is absolutely manditory if you are going to be successful with this project. Be sure that all parts to be soldered are joined and fitted as closely as possible. Buy some Hi Force 44 solder from Brownells and learn to use it well. Be sure all your parts are tinned with solder, including all the surfaces between the barrels, before you try to put things together. (Tinning them helps to prevent later rusting between the barrels).

Use the acid based flux that comes with the solder to start with, but after getting all your surfaces tinned, you need to wash down everything well in very hot soapy water to get off all the acid flux residue. When you get ready to solder everythig up, use rosen based flux to do the final soldering, it is non acidic and won't rust all the parts.

This may sound complicated but it is just one part of building a double conversion. Fitting the parts and holding them together during construction is the hard part. Just be sure you are willing to follow through with the build before you start, otherwise you will be out a ton of time and money.

If you hit a wall where you can't figure something out, quit right there and seek out advice from someone that knows. Small errors can usually be fixed or worked around, but if you continue to work while you are frustrated, you will likely continue on to wreck the whole thing beyond repair. Good luck with your project. Bob



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