Friends-

I have a weakness for 6.5/.264's. Recently, I found a Browning Safari in .264 Winnie. It is a fixer-upper. This one like all Browning Safari's of the day has a 22 inch barrel (what were they thinking 45 years ago). I have a new 26 inch tube on order. The stock is being refinished. My question has to do with bottom metal. This rifle has an aluminium trigger guard and floor plate that has some nice understated scroll on it. However, the anodization has been worn off of it.

My choices seem to be to have the original unit "re-anodized" and the question becomes who and where do they do that?

My other choice seems to be to find a steel replacement. Being that the action is a FN, I am guessing that a take-off unit from a Sears Mod 50 would work just as well?

Of course, I could plunk down and drop $300 for a Blackburn or other high end unit but, I am trying to get by on this aspect of the restoration on the cheap.

Any suggestions and/or answers to my questions will be appreciated.

I was told it could be done, but sorry can't help with a smith. I switched mine when I was in the same boat.

Would be interested in your take-off if you decide to replace it.

Of your two options lets discuss restoring your plating first. Easy would be polish it and take it to a plater that does military plating work. I don't know Texas business stuff well but I am certain you probably have a plater right in your home town. Call out the correct Mil finish type and its a done deal. I am at home and I would need to check the Mil numbers at work as I don't remember it off the top of my head. Downside to this is for a single piece this will get a tad pricey and you might have to wait until someone else brings in a job worth setting up the tank or pay through the nose.
I am not crazy about this your just replating what was on the rifle, if it wore once it will again, although with a good plating and care that could take years. I also don't like aluminum trigger guards.

Next option is find a steel replacement, and I highly suggest this route. You are rebarreling anyway and you are going to blue the barrel, so an additional steel part in the blueing is a minor effort. So the question comes down to cost. There are several places that make bottom metal, you are aware of Blackburn, so I won't labor that point, I would suggest you revisit the options there, there are also a couple of guys doing this. Me personally I would spring for the bucks there, or:

Look for a 09 action, the hole pattern off of the 09 is the same as your FN. You can do this for about $100, its easy if your stock isn't already inletted, and 09's are a good bottom metal, really that is "the" reason these are so desireable. If you had a pile of actions around and could swap parts around you would quickly see how easy this would be, two screws on each action, bolt on, then do a little clean up and polishing on the 09 metal before sending to the blueing tank.

Again, I would seriously consider option #2 again, don't immediatly discard it. If the dollars just aren't there ( and I understand completely ) then work on the 09 parts.

If you decide to keep your aluminum parts, ping me when I am at work and I will look up the federal plating number for a quality anodize. In the end unless your lucky I suspect that is going to cost you. If I personally was doing it I send a lot of work to the platers every few months and I would sideline a dicussion on this and pull a favor and drop them off the part and wait until they had there tanks set up and just jump on another job. That way it would be reasonable. I suspect you walking in out of the blue to a plater with a single part is going to either get costly or your going to get a 3-4 month wait, maybe both. Maybe another AR member will be able to direct you to someone that is geared to smaller plating operations, that is set up currently.

I personally would replace it with a steel setup.

annodizing is an industrial process that is normally done by people in the plating business but in some cases they specialize in annodizing aluminum. Get out the yelllow pages and look for industrial finishes or plating or annodizing.

Call and ask for annodizing and be specific about what you're doing. There's several types of annodizing and they'll likely know what you're wanting to do. There's normally a minimum charge by these companies so it might cost you $75 to get a $5.00 job done.....but look to the yellow pages.....

Vapodog is correct, ask if they do mil finishes though, they don't cost any more, they are just defined as a standard, and must maintain the quality. Any good plater worth his salts (minor pun) does mil type work, this is a big portion of their business, and even the strict commercial stuff gets called out that way as it is the most common.

Problem with anodizing is the colors, I can plate in a rainbow of colors, purple, yellow, red. Only a few colors a dark grey, a black or blue/black are suitable and you want someone who reguarly runs the colors.

You have a plater in your home town, Vapodog is right look it up in the yellow pages and ask a few questions.

Mark:

I would definately keep that original bottom metal in order to (1) keep the gun closer to its original Browning Safari origins, and (2) keep the weight down as much as possible. You want your weight where it counts -- in the barrel -- not in the things that hang off of the action.

It shouldn't be that hard to find a shop that can re-anodize the finish, then refill the scroll engraving with gold filling. Whatever that costs is going to be less than new forged bottom metal.

Good luck with that project, and bring it by to show me when you're done.

In the short term you can send it to one of the gun houses that does polymer coatings like RoBar or Gun Kote. Here is one for example: Diamondkote
I would stick with one gun-house or another as industrial platers get wadded-up about gun parts sometimes.

Steve and tiggertate-

Thank you for your advise. I am definitely going to stay with the aluminimum triggerguard and floorplate. Steve, as soon as I get this project together I will being paying you a visit.

tiggertate, great suggestion. I will go with one of the firearms related coatings "shops."

Thanks again

Turn-Key coating. Houston TX. 713-666-1375

Excellent work, specialize in small orders.

John

I am confused on the bottom metal. Most I have seen are aluminum, but some are steel. Mine is definatly steel.

What is the deal here.