Just received [Finished!] my very first kit, Kibler Colonial!

[Jerry]

Hi guys,
I've been slowly working on the kit and I've made some mistakes here and there but they haven't been that bad so far. until now...

As I was trying to drill through he front handguard tab-thing, my drill bit broke inside the stock. I tried to drill through from the lock side of the stock and that one broke as well... Probably a combination of poor quality drill bit kit and bad technique. Anyways, in the process, I made a ugly dent in the wood near the lock. Is there anything I can do about it beyond learn from it and just love it for what it is (my first build)? lol
If no wood is removed, try taking a wet cleaning patch and heat up a copper roofing nail with a propane torch and put the wet patch over the damaged area and touch the heated copper nail to it to pull out any dent that you can. Hope this helps. Jerry
Also, in the process of getting one of the drill bit fragments out, the pin hole in the stock ended up enlarging to a diameter somewhere in between 1/16 and 5/64. So I was thinking I can still salvage this if I can find a pin stock that's slightly larger. So far I'm only able to find it in 1/16" like Jim supplies with the kit. Any source of pin stocks that are slightly larger?

thanks in advance for any advice!
Towa

[Obi2winky]

After working on the rifle on and off this past year, I finally finished it! I went to the range today for a function test. And it is a proper boom stick! No targets to show for since it's not sighted in yet.

Next step would be to sight it in, but I was wondering if I could get a good starting load? I have 0.530 ball, 0.018 patches, and 3F Goex for now.

[smallpatch]

FYI,
Those little break throughs are what enables you to get the slim profile Mr Kibler achieves.

[Bob McBride]

After working on the rifle on and off this past year, I finally finished it! I went to the range today for a function test. And it is a proper boom stick! No targets to show for since it's not sighted in yet.

Next step would be to sight it in, but I was wondering if I could get a good starting load? I have 0.530 ball, 0.018 patches, and 3F Goex for now.

That’s a good start. Start at 50-60g. Find your shot patches. They should be in nice enough shape to reuse or nearly so with just a little edge fraying. If you find you’re getting the random inexplicable big miss you may be blowing those .018s and curveballing your roundball and may need to go to a thicker patch. 5 shots or so for each load in 10g increments and you should find a tight group somewhere along the way. Post some pics!

[Eric Krewson]

I had the same experience on the drill bit thing, a broken drill bit in each side of the lug, the trigger guard wasn't coming  off. I had used a temporary phillips head screw in the trigger plate that didn't show but it bugged the heck out of me.

I shaped all the wood on both the sides of the trigger guard with a tiny riffler file, a scraper and sandpaper, there was a lot of wood and it took me a while.

I guy on here said to buy a 1/16" carbide bit, put it in the hole in the stock and using only the weight of the drill let it eat. After about ten minutes of letting the drill bit eat I started seeing metal chips come out of the hole, 5 more minutes and I successfully drilled out the broken bits and opened the lug back up.

If you can find some 5/64 music wire it will be just right for your larger hole. Hobby shops sell it for RC airplane controls. Ace Hardware has it , some stores stock it or you might have to order it online and have a store pick up. You can get it on ebay but not in small batches like at hobby shops, more like 30, 36" pieces at a time.

[Obi2winky]

After working on the rifle on and off this past year, I finally finished it! I went to the range today for a function test. And it is a proper boom stick! No targets to show for since it's not sighted in yet.

Next step would be to sight it in, but I was wondering if I could get a good starting load? I have 0.530 ball, 0.018 patches, and 3F Goex for now.

That’s a good start. Start at 50-60g. Find your shot patches. They should be in nice enough shape to reuse or nearly so with just a little edge fraying. If you find you’re getting the random inexplicable big miss you may be blowing those .018s and curveballing your roundball and may need to go to a thicker patch. 5 shots or so for each load in 10g increments and you should find a tight group somewhere along the way. Post some pics!

I have to go on an extended business trip starting this week, but I'll take some pictures with the gun when I get back. Thanks for the pointers!

[Obi2winky]

FYI,
Those little break throughs are what enables you to get the slim profile Mr Kibler achieves.

Noted! It wasn't a problem at all. It was just my inexperienced curiosity

[Obi2winky]

I had the same experience on the drill bit thing, a broken drill bit in each side of the lug, the trigger guard wasn't coming  off. I had used a temporary phillips head screw in the trigger plate that didn't show but it bugged the heck out of me.

I shaped all the wood on both the sides of the trigger guard with a tiny riffler file, a scraper and sandpaper, there was a lot of wood and it took me a while.

I guy on here said to buy a 1/16" carbide bit, put it in the hole in the stock and using only the weight of the drill let it eat. After about ten minutes of letting the drill bit eat I started seeing metal chips come out of the hole, 5 more minutes and I successfully drilled out the broken bits and opened the lug back up.

If you can find some 5/64 music wire it will be just right for your larger hole. Hobby shops sell it for RC airplane controls. Ace Hardware has it , some stores stock it or you might have to order it online and have a store pick up. You can get it on ebay but not in small batches like at hobby shops, more like 30, 36" pieces at a time.

5/64 is exactly what I ended up doing. It still left an embarrassing spot that looks like I completely botched the sideplate inletting, but as long as I learned a lesson and not repeat it, that's ok with me!

[Eric Krewson]

A steam iron and a damp washcloth is all you need to pull out a dent, this combo has worked the best for me.

Little glued in shims can hide just about any questionable inletting, I have yet to build a gun without them, unfortunately. The are easy to hide under the right staining and finish. That dent near the oblique flat is not a shim.

There are two big shims alongside this tang;




Same gun;

[Obi2winky]

That's a very sweet shim job!
I received the same advice using steam last year and it worked up to a point. The stain and finish hid it pretty well. If I examine it carefully, it's still there. But I'm not going to complain. I'll just be more careful next time!

[Buckskinner]

I did same thing on my first rifle last year and got the fix recommendation from Eric as well... Work wonderfully!

[Obi2winky]

This is my completed rifle. You can see the how much the steam, stain and finish filled in some of the booboo I made under the lock. But there was no concealing the trigger guard drilling mishap. If I had a sliver of the same wood from the kit, i probably could have made it look a bit tidier.

Overall, it was a great experience and I'm looking forward to sighting this in and to my next project.

[mikeyfirelock]

I think you did a very nice job on it.   You should be proud of the work you’ve done, it looks good and undoubtedly will shoot very nicely.   Food first effort.    Now....On to the next one.

[thecapgunkid]

Quit fretting because you did well for the first time.  A lot of guys would be willing to own that rifle. Whatever you learned will travel with you on the next build.  Trust me and stick with this forum.

[Bob McBride]

You did a fine job. Shim turned out perfect. I think the lock inlet looks better than if it was perfectly done. Nothing wrong with it at all. As a matter of fact, get it dirty and get a little surface rust growing. She’s a beaut.

[KC]

That's a good looking rifle, very nice finish on it. I think you'll enjoy that for a long time to come.
K.C.

[Obi2winky]

Thank you all! Even my non-firearm wife lets me leave this one in the living room
I greatly appreciate all the knowledge and the encouragement of this forum and the people here!

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Really nice looking rifle.  You did a great job bringing out the curl on that stock.

[Eric Krewson]

You can use any maple for a fix if you are pretty good with an artist brush and leather dye to match everything up.

I had this happen on my squirrel rifle build. I tried to drill through the wood and trigger guard lug at the same time, the drill bit skated on the lug and came out in the wrong place. I glued a toothpick in the arrant hole and redrilled, everything looked Ok.

I tapped the pin in from the side plate side, it followed the bad hole and broke out a chunk of my lock molding.

I glued the chunk back in and gave it a string wrap to "clamp" this awkward place.




Everything went back together but it looked pretty bad. I redrilled from the lock side and corrected the hole.



Aquafortis followed by leather dye and some brush work under tru-oil hid things pretty well.

[Stoner creek]

You can use any maple for a fix if you are pretty good with an artist brush and leather dye to match everything up.

I had this happen on my squirrel rifle build. I tried to drill through the wood and trigger guard lug at the same time, the drill bit skated on the lug and came out in the wrong place. I glued a toothpick in the arrant hole and redrilled, everything looked Ok.

I tapped the pin in from the side plate side, it followed the bad hole and broke out a chunk of my lock molding.

I glued the chunk back in and gave it a string wrap to "clamp" this awkward place.




Everything went back together but it looked pretty bad. I redrilled from the lock side and corrected the hole.



Aquafortis followed by leather dye and some brush work under tru-oil hid things pretty well.

That is an odd place to pin your trigger guard unless your tab is too short. If that were the case, a best practice would be to add metal to the tab (solder or braised) to allow you to install the pin from the inside of the lock mortise. Placing a pin in that location is just asking for problems. Avoid.
By the way Ob2, nice job on the kit. Now get out there and burn some powder!!

[Eric Krewson]

Short trigger guard lug plus that is where the the second hole came out, I was done fooling with stuff, kinda' fed up with all the bumps in the road making it. The precarve had "issues" that took me forever to work around. When I finished the gun I was so frazzled by it that I hated it and didn't want to even look at it. All that disgust faded in a month or so and I got it out of the safe and started shooting it. I did a good job on it and it is a tack driver, it has since become one of my most favorite rifles.

[Lostreef]

Obi2winky
Rifle looks great.  What stain/process did you use for finishing the stock?  My Kibler kit is on order and your stock has the color I am looking for.

[Obi2winky]

Obi2winky
Rifle looks great.  What stain/process did you use for finishing the stock?  My Kibler kit is on order and your stock has the color I am looking for.

Thanks lostreef!
I used tannic acid and aquafortis from the Kibler store. Then I used laurel mountain honey maple stain cut with alcohol. But just as Jim warns you in his kit assembly video, I lost a lot of warmth from using the aquafortis and even staining it wasn’t doing too much to bring it back. So I sanded back certain areas using the original wood curl as a land mark. That’s why certain areas look really dark, others reddish, and yet other almost yellow. I’m still learning to read the wood grain and natural curl figures so some of the curls actually kinda looks artificial, and that’s because it is. haha I probably did 3 or 4 coats/iteration of staining and a bit of sanding here and there. I oiled it with Tried and True Varnish oil. I think I did 3 coats but I can’t remember. I just remember it was difficult to work with but I kept working until I was reasonably satisfied. I then used 3 coats of Laurel Mountain Permalyn. I’m not sure about how many coats of each step I’m supposed to do, so please don’t use this as a guide... also I was going for a “lightly used” look so I wanted the finish to look a little matte.

I benefited a lot from Kingsburyarm showing how aquafortis, heating, staining, sanding, and finishing oil all worked and changes the appearance using a scrap piece of maple. I was very fortunate I live relatively close by to him and he was kind enough to show me. I guess you could do similar type of experiment in a small scale behind the butt plate area?

The metals were all patina-ed with the blue solution I got from the Kibler store as well.