Gave an old friend a second makeover

squawsach · 10-15-2012, 01:54 PM

I have been playing with Savage rimfires for a couple years but I just discovered Savage Shooters forum. I thought I would say HI and post the lastest mods done to my turtle shooter. I bought one of the $99 MkIIs from Wal-Mart many moons ago and turned it into a project gun. I can't leave things well enough alone and the rifle may have been a real shooters as it was but I took it home and knocked the barrel out of it before I ever shot it. It looked like this before before I started the project.

I bought a GM barrel blank and had in turned to my specs and I put a PTG Match chamber in it and and crowned it. The stock needed replaced but at the time the only drop in stocks for the MKII were pretty much like the factory stock. I ordered an uninletted Warner Varmint stock from Boyds and did the inletting for the MKII. There were several other mods to the action. It ended up looking like this.

It has been my goto turtle rifle. My hunting partner recently set up a hydrographic dipping shop. We would use some of my guns to learn the process. I would help screw things up quite a bit. He would learn from my mistakes. Now, I make a mess of things far less often and he usually gets them right the first time. Getting a good dip is hard. Most guns get dipped in a camo pattern with a matte finish. The matte camo hides many small imperfections in the stock. We decided to make a rifle with some "BLING!" and the turtle gun was picked for the project. The stock was stripped of the oil finish, shot with high build automotive primer, sanded smooth, and shot with three coats of 2k automotive paint in metallic gold. The barreled action was bead blasted, primed with self etch primer, and shot with metallic silver. The stock and barrel were dipped, rinsed, and shot with high build clear. The stock received a candy red midcoat during the clear process. We knew that the bright, glossy finish hides nothing. We spent some time on the prep work before laying paint. The gun has enough "BLING!" that it was difficult to take pics of it. It's blinding in the sunlight.

**stomp442** · 10-15-2012, 02:12 PM

Wow that looks amazing. Good job.

M.O.A. · 10-16-2012, 12:18 AM

Yes very nice ;-)

**MaDa** · 10-16-2012, 10:04 AM

Very cool. Good lookin rifle.

Shoot-N-Nut · 10-17-2012, 10:24 PM

Looks good Gary, when are you going to make a knife that matches it?........You getting out and about away from Rimfire?

squawsach · 10-18-2012, 03:05 AM

I would never make a knife to match that rifle. That would just be gross! I have no problem doing that to a rifle, not a knife.

I still hang out on RFC but I really like Savage rifles so I thought I would pop in here. I don't spend much time building rimfires anymore but I still love to shoot them.

Shoot-N-Nut · 10-18-2012, 07:21 AM

I dont know, Im seeing a set of copper scales with a black liner and maybe some mosaic pins done with copper tubing and black filler and jeweled blade, I think it would look good! Now to find copper bar stock thick and wide enough to make knife scales out of!

**shovelheadave** · 10-18-2012, 09:23 AM

Very nice !!!!

jstanfield103 · 10-22-2012, 05:12 AM

First Welcome to the Forum ! It will be nice to have someone with you're experience to add to all the discussions here. Very nice looking rifle. I believe I have seen you post on other forums, is this correct ?

davemuzz · 10-22-2012, 07:20 AM

Nice!! At first glance I thought you jeweled the entire barrel!!! I really like that look on the barrel. It's really different and just plain "cool"!! Nice stuff!!

**Apache** · 10-22-2012, 10:25 AM

WOW! That's nice!

squawsach · 10-22-2012, 11:51 AM

Thanks guys. I have been on RFC for awhile but just discovered Savage Shooters.

**handirifle** · 10-24-2012, 01:09 AM

Impressive work all around. When you say you had the barrel turned to your specs, did you mean the area that fits into the receiver, or was the whole barrel profiled?

Was looking at the GM website and $43 for a SS blank isn't bad at all. The other work might change all that, but I think I could do a bit of that myself. I bet that rifle is a beast to pack around though. What's it weigh?