New (to me) 12 gauge Barrel

Out of the blue, I found a (used) barrel for a Stevens 79 pump shotgun that I couldn't get out of my head but I didn't want to say anything until the auction was over so I didn't jinx myself.

Having owned that gun for more than 18 years now, I was a bit surprised to find an 18 inch barrel for it because finding parts for them have always proven to be like finding gold hens teeth. I never understood why they weren't more popular than they were despite being out of production for so long.

With the exception of only having 1 action bar instead of two, they're laid out very closely to a 500/590 hybrid. The bolt has dual extractors, a metal trigger guard, the familiar metal safety button on top and slide release in the left rear bottom of the receiver the same as the 500/590.

The barrel that came on the gun originally was a VERY long vent rib barrel for goose and duck hunting, but the one I found at funbroker is a standard 18 incher.

The item description said the blueing was thin in some places and it could use reblued, but otherwise is in good usable condition.

I can reblue it pretty easily with some birchwood casey paste so that isn't a problem. But if I'm going to go that far with it, I am strongly considering removing the factory bead and drill and tap it so I can install a night sight on it considering I only paid $25 for the barrel so that leaves me some room to play with

I just wanted to vent some of my excitement before I popped. I had never seen the mystical 18 inch model 79 barrel before

Congrats John!! It's always fun to stumble upon a great find.

Thanks a lot MikeD.

I had never even heard of an 18 inch factory barrel for that model before, so I'm pretty stoked about it.

Since I got such a good price on it, the more I am thinking about it, the more I am leaning toward putting the meprolight bead on it.

Ironically though, the bead costs more than the barrel did but would still be a nice addition to have on it.

In all, I'll probably have about $85 in the barrel counting shipping, and the drill/tap and bead, and bluing materials. I may even buy a cheap fiber bead for the long barrel while I am at it just do them both at the same time. I've been wanting to do that for a long time anyway.

That's awesome John!

Thanks LES.

I'll try to get some pics while going through everything.

It may be a week or so though by the time it takes them to get the payment in the mail and then get the barrel from them and the parts and stuff to do the work, but I'm looking forward to it. It's been a while since I dusted off my mill.

I'm lookin forward to following your progress...

Oh...nifty...I'd like to follow along with your blueing process.

Blueing is easy with the paste. You just squeeze some out of the tube on a rag and put it on the metal for about 10 minutes and wipe the excess off.

Congrats on the find!
If you keep looking, deals on things you want, eventually turn up.
A couple of weeks a go I picked up a 26" no rib barrel with a C-Lect choke for $39.99!
It now sits on Bubba, my hunting 12ga, all done up in camo and I love it!

I make it a habit to check out Gunbroker and Ebay almost every day.
I save my favorite searches and run them. You never know what you may find.

That's a great find LTB. $40 for that barrel was a very good bargain.

To be perfectly honest, I'm unsure what choke the 18 inch barrel I bought is going to have, but I am assuming cylinder or open choke considering that's the most common for that length barrel across the board where manufacturers are concerned but I was going to check it to make sure when I got it anyway.

I don't check auction sites very often at all. Very rarely would be a lot better description.

Usually only when I'm looking for something specific or resesarching current prices for something I am interested in so I don't get burned.

So stumbling across that barrel just happened by dumb luck. Right time and right place I guess.

I paid for the barrel and ordered the gunsmithing parts today, so now I just twiddle my thumbs and wait for everything to get here LOL

All of the little parts have gotten here now, except the barrel, which I expect towards the end of the week to allow the seller to get the M.O. and mail it to me.

So far, so good.



I also already installed the fiber sights on the old barrel. Those Hi Viz brand are "da bomb" and quite well made. I immediately appreciated the magnets underneath to help fasten them to the barrel, but I also added a generous amount of JB Weld too because I don't want to wholly trust the magnets alone, but they may have been just fine without the epoxy.

I tried both the orange and green, and the green just seemed brighter and caught my eye faster and I'm sure all of my neighbors think I've lost my mind walking around the yard with a shotgun pointing it at everything in sight while I was deciding which bead and color I liked the best.

The triangle (being a smaller surface area) wasn't as bright, and was overall smaller in appearance to me too. So thankfully, the round and triangle came packaged together because I really thought I would've liked the orange triangle the best, but it turned out to be the exact opposite.

And a few quick snapshots of the new Hi Viz fiber sights on the gun

John, I've taken two turkeys with my 930 using just the snap on Hi-Viz sights and they work great.

I was worried about them coming opff but they attached pretty tight and it would have taken quite a snag to pull them off.

Can't wait to see how your barrel comes out.

I had one of those magnet sites on my Trap gun. Did not last long. With the amont of rounds down the pipe of that gun, the magnets were not strong enough to keep it on for more than a round.
I went with the a screw on one that is now there permanantly.

I agree with you John A, the green color is the way to go.

I had the same thing happen on mine that you can see in your last pic.
You get a double green dot on your rib.
The light shining through the bead glares on the rib.
I ended up hitting the end with a permannet marker to stop the double.
Two front green beads on a competition gun is not good.

I hadn't noticed the glare on the barrel from the sight until you mentioned it in the picture, but I don't notice it when looking down the barrel.

I was unsure about the magnets alone, and why I put some epoxy under it to help hold it.

If I lose it, I'll get one that screws on to the rib but I think it'll be on there for a long time to come the way it is right now. It's tight.

I have a red one on one of my Skeet guns. It was leftover in a multi pack that I bought.
I have never noticed the glare when shooting that gun.
Trap is such a prcise game of mounting and looking that I am not the only one that I know that has colored in the end of one of those sights.
Skeet I shoot Lo Gun and never even see the bead or the rib.

Well, the new barrel got here today, and I probably won't do any of the bluing until maybe this weekend because I am going to have to hit the barrel with some 600 grit to clean it up a little before I reblue it, but I did get to drill and tap it for the Meprolight sight.

I had to figure out some way to time it a little bit because it wasn't pointed straight back and was closer to about a 5 'Oclock position at first and I didn't want to force it and risk breaking the shank, so to make my life simple, I drilled 2 holes in the plastic wrapper the sight came in, and carefully made 2 little washers out of the clear plastic that will act as a shim when I install it and use blue loctite after I sand and blue the barrel.

Another little quirk with the night sight, it glows on both sides, so I am also going to hit the front of it with a black sharpie, or maybe even some black paint so the muzzle end of the sight doesn't glow as brightly as the rear. :roll:

I also checked the muzzle to see which choke it is, and it measured out at .721, which would be an Improved Cylinder choke. The old barrel measured out at .691, which would be an xtra full

Just for giggles, I put everything together just to get an idea of how it's going to look, and I think it's going to be a wicked little beast.

As promised, here are some pics.

Before:



barrels side by side for size comparison





During the drill and tapping process





Looking down the barrel at the night sight



And a side view of the little nasty

John, that's already lookin like one helluva fine weapon. Can't wait to see it after you touch it up. Nicely done with the Mepro bead Sir...

The gun looks good with the short barrel.

I'm not going to be able to just touch up the finish.

At one time, someone put some kind of black spray on it.

I'm hesitant to call it a spray paint. I don't know really what it was.



But I sanded the entire barrel down to bare metal and will be reblueing the whole thing.







So far, I have the first coat on, but am not going to do any more coats until the weekend.

I had to turn the flash off to get a half decent picture of the blue so far.

Nice job so far John