Need some advice here guys. I recently bought an old Winchester 1910 .401 WSL to replace another one that was stolen 6 years ago. I bought it on Auction Arms. It's not quite what was advertised. It's clearly been reblued somewhere along the lines but was a decent job. The wood was advertised as "perfect with no breaks or cracks". Well, a blind man can see the 2 obvious repaired forend cracks and the one in the stock. I should have sent it back but I didn't. I can get new wood made fairly reasonably and the metal is in good shape with no pitting. The bore is pristine, which is kind of rare in older rifles (this one was made in 1912). My biggest gripe is that it has 3 holes in the side of the receiver that were obviously done by some ham-fisted backyard "gunsmith". I want to put a receiver sight on the gun but the existing holes don't match up and one of the holes is off center. I've heard various ideas on how to fill these holes and start over but I'm looking for opinions. The main thing is I want to be able to fill them and be able to redrill it properly for the peep sight. Even if I just used the factory sights, these holes are unsightly and I'm too anal not to do something about it. Ideas on how to approach this and approximate cost? I can't afford to spend a fortune so I may end up trying to sell this one and finding another one but these guns in decent shape are getting scarce. Thanx.

Boy, so easy to drill, so hard to fix. Holes can often be welded (mig) low heat transfer to the action and filed/ground down and polished and redrilled correctly. This will usually mean rebluing. Pretty easy to get a couple hundred bucks into a gun this way.

Easy way unless your looking to make original is to retap a little forward or back from the existing holes. fill any holes showing with filler screws (such as used to fill scope base holes) and shoot her to your hearts content. This is the least expensive approach.

Another .401 fan..can go for many years before running across another one...miss mine

Think you'd be better off filling the holes with screws...anything else will result in a complete reblue, and the very good chance that the welded/filled spots won't match the new blue anyway (even if not over heated, the steel itself will be differnt...and will take the blue slightly differently). Basically have the chice of usless screws, with one off center...or oddly tinted blue spots, with one off center.

The "disguise" would be to re-drill the apature's base to work with the existing (even if off center) holes. All in all, have found this solution to be pleasing on other miss-managed guns. Covered up by a Lyman or Williams sight, it would be a lot less offensive.

(You can tell...a full complete take-down of a Win. 1910 is NOT one of the fun things in life...getting all that spring back in place will test your sanity, and require a couple of home-bew tools as well as a second pair of hands...I do NOT recommend taking it all the way to pieces.)