Getting my .30-06 Handi-rifle squared away

[gschwertley]

Well, a few years ago I was at a gunshow and it was one of those times when I had walked the entire show twice and nothing had tempted me to buy it.  I was about to leave, and noticed a scuzzy NEF Handi-rifle in .30-06 for sale.  Bubba had sanded the stock down to bare wood, and in so doing sanded away some of the detail of the wood.  Bubba had wanted a hammer extension, but wasn't patient enough to wait for the correct one.  He took one that didn't fit and ground away on the hammer until it did.  I worked, but looked bad.  The rifle also had an ugly Norinco scope on it that I figured was garbage.  I bought this rifle for $115 and it sat in a safe for a good long time before I took it out to see if it would shoot well.  At the time I bought it, I remember thinking, "That's one way to get a .30-06 barrel."  When I did get it out to the range, I found that it was reasonably accurate but I still hated the way it looked.   Once properly zeroed, the Norinco scope turned out to be okay.

Since I retired last year, I planned on doing something with this rifle.  Lately, I finally got around to it.  I had planned to send the frame back to the NEF factory and have them replace the hammer.  After reading about the procedure on this GBO and another place online, I decided to tackle it myself.  After all, I've overhauled automobile engines successfully, so the hammer job couldn't be too tough.

I thought about buying a new hammer for it.  However, I decided to use stuff already on hand.  I had a 12 ga. NEF shotgun that I picked up at the gunshow for $40, but it had a crudely sawed off barrel.  I've used a couple of other barrels on it, but I decided to sell one of those recently.  So I sold the stock set, and used the hammer out of the sawed-off shotgun in the .30-06 Handi-rifle.  Now I just have the frame/receiver left over and maybe will use it for a paperweight.

To replace the ruined original stocks, I placed a WTB ad on the GBO site and one of our fellows is selling me a take-off Monte Carlo stock set that is surplus to his needs. 

Tonight I installed the replacement hammer in the Handi-rifle, it works and all is well.  Now I just have to wait for the stock set to get here and the project will be finished. 


.30-06 Handi-rifle with original sanded-down stock to be replaced.


Handi-rifle receiver with new hammer installed, resting on home made disassembly jig.


Donor shotgun frame after partial disassembly.

[ArkyKen]

Hey,I am impressed.Did you do a little trigger massage while you had it opened up? I have always wondered why the hammer is not drilled n tapped so the extension can be set  with  lock-tite.Might cut down on extension sales.

[quickdtoo]

The hammer can be drilled and tapped after annealing the spur, see the low profile hammer mods in the FAQs.

Tim

[gschwertley]

No, I didn't do anything to the trigger pull while I was in there.  I didn't want to press my luck, and after I had all the pins in (but not seated) I tried it out a few times and it seemed reasonable.  I kinda wondered how it would be, since I used the existing trigger, not the one that was matched up with the donor hammer.  I'm not real interested in super-light triggers; on a couple of my fancier commercial rifles, once in a while at the range, I will let off a premature shot due to light trigger.  Too much shooting of clunky, two-stage military triggers, I guess.

The really important issue is making and using a slave pin to get the trigger back in.  Without it, you could be playing around with it hit and miss for some time.

When it's necessary to do so, I don't know what method they use to take these apart at the factory.  I took note of the disassembly jigs that have been shown on this forum and kinda made one up along that line.  When I took the parts out of the donor shotgun receiver, I thought I would try something a little different.  Using only the bottom section of the jig, I tapped the pins with a hard plastic tip hammer.  This started them on their way and got the heads just below the surface of the receiver wall so I could then take a pin and drive them out.  Using this method, I didn't need the upper section of my jig.  I don't anticipate taking one of these apart again any time soon, but if I do, I will use this latter method again.  As often happens in life, different solutions work equally well for different people.

I have hammer extensions on three of my NEF's and have never had an issue with the factory hammer extension lock screw loosening up.   I've never used Loctite on them.

[striker525]

is there directions on here for making the Jigs?

That's pretty wood you got for it.

[quickdtoo]

See the trigger job links info in the FAQs.

Tim