Belgian Browning Safari Bolt Action 30-06

[anchor24]

I am interested in purchasing a Belgian Browning Safari Bolt Action rifle manufactured in 1966. I have read about salt curing on the wooden stock.
How can I check if the salt has done any damage to the rifle or action covered by stock?

Thank you for any comments or suggestions.

[briandg]

Just for my benefit, could you explain salt curing? is this a mummification type process to dry the wood?

[black mamba]

Yes, they used some kind of salt to help dry the wood faster. Here is an excerpt from artsgunshop.com, Art being an ex-Browning employee.

"So, how do you spot a salt cured gun? I can go to just about any gun show and always find a couple of them. I knew a man in the gunstock business who told me he could taste the salt in a stock blank. He just used the old tongue method, but I think the best way is to use the old eye ball. If you know what to look for, they are easy to spot. On rifles, I always look at the reinforcement screws in the side of the stock or around the swivel studs."

Obviously, looking for rust.

[Scorch]

Salt wood was an issue from 1968 to 1971 or so, so a 1966 rifle should be safe anyway. It only applies to Claro walnut stocks, and as far as I know, Browning Safaris were not usually stocked in Claro. Usually you will find it in Medallion, Olympian, and Midas grade rifles, as well as Superposed shotguns, T-Bolt 22s, and the higher grade A-5s.

[warbirdlover]

Salt cured wood? You learn something new every day. :confused:

[Scorch]

Just for my benefit, could you explain salt curing?
Well, it goes like this. With the population explosion after WW2, there began to be a shortage of fine grade furnture woods, like walnut, rosewood, maple, etc. Many of these woods have a long cure time, and most if not all of the large supplies had been bombed into toothpicks during the war, so they were hard to come by in Europe. European furniture makers and gunmakers turned to the US and South America for hardwoods (South America was notoriously unreliable as a supply source, they'd had a little war of their own gong on for about 50 years). With the economy boom beginning in the 1950s, the same situation was developing in the US. Sometime in the 1960s, some bright engineer "discovered" that salt piled on wood would draw the moisture out very quickly, couple of weeks instead of years for air drying. This same process was used for furniture wood for several years with no issues.

A California developer needed to bulldoze several hundred acres of commercial walnut groves, and in stepped a middleman who thought this would be a great way to make a couple million $$. The process was explained to engineers at Browning and FN, and a deal was struck, he would supply dry stock blanks to FN for Browning firearms.

From pilot to scale-up there was a major issue. The blanks were piled up in ricks 15' high and salt was piled on top of them. Water literally poured out of the ricks. Good, right? Well, no problem with the top blanks, but by the time the water dripped down to the bottom of the ricks, the stock blanks were sitting in a salt slurry. Top blanks were dry, blanks in the middle of the stack were wet, bottom blanks were soggy with salt water. The entire shipment went to FN in 1968. Then the problems started to show up. Rusty guns, peeling finishes, so Browning said they would fix them all for the original owners. By 1970, they had discovered the problem and supposedly stopped using the wood. They sort of sold the wood and it reappeared and problems resumed. In 1971, they destroyed the wood, but by then Browning was headed down the road to bankruptcy. Only thing that saved Browning was a new relationship with Miroku, but they never recovered financially.