The gunsmith didn’t even look up from his workbench when he delivered the verdict. Can’t be fixed, at least not economically. You’re looking at a new bolt assembly, new extractor, probably a new firing pin while we’re in there. Parts alone will run you six, maybe $700 labor on top of that. Honestly, sir, you’d be better off buying a new rifle.
The old man standing at the counter said nothing. He simply looked at the disassembled Winchester model, 70 spread across the glass case. His father’s rifle carried through the Arden’s forest in the winter of 1944, handed down through three generations. The gunsmith, a heavy set man in his 40s with an impressive array of certifications framed on the wall behind him, finally glanced up.
He saw what he expected to see, another sentimental old-timer clinging to a piece of obsolete machinery. Look, I get it. It’s got history, but history doesn’t make it functional. The extractor is worn beyond tolerance and without the right replacement parts, which Winchester doesn’t even make anymore. There’s nothing I can do.
The old man’s weathered hand rested on the worn walnut stock. Mind if I take a look myself? The gunsmith’s eyebrows rose. Sir, this is precision work. I’ve been doing this for 22 years. If I’m telling you it can’t be fixed without parts, it can’t be fixed without parts. If you believe that some knowledge is worth more than any replacement part, type respect in the comments right now.
His name was Walter Novak and he was 81 years old. He had driven his pickup truck 60 mi from his farm to this shop because it was the only certified gunsmith within 100 miles and his hands weren’t steady enough anymore for the close work. At least that’s what he had told himself. The truth was more complicated. Walter’s hands were plenty steady, steadier than most men half his age, but his eyes weren’t what they used to be, and the lighting in his workshop wasn’t good enough for the fine inspection work the old Winchester needed. So he had
swallowed his pride and brought his father’s rifle to a professional, hoping for a simple fix. What he found instead was a young man, young to Walter, anyway, who had looked at the rifle for less than 3 minutes before declaring it a lost cause and suggesting he buy something new, something with a polymer stock and a price tag and no history at all.
Walter had seen this before, many times over the decades, the replacement mentality. If something breaks, throw it away and buy another. The idea that repair was somehow beneath consideration, that the only solution to any problem was a new part, a new product, a new purchase. It was an attitude that would have been incomprehensible to the men Walter had served with.
Men who kept their equipment functioning through four years of war using nothing but ingenuity, determination, and whatever materials happened to be at hand. Walter Novak had enlisted in the army in 1943, 3 days after his 18th birthday. By 1944, he was a sergeant with the Second Infantry Division, fighting his way across France and into Germany.
He had been a designated marksman before such a term officially existed, a soldier whose accuracy with a rifle was recognized and utilized by his commanders for missions requiring precision. But more than his shooting, Walter became known for something else. His ability to fix anything. In an army that ran on equipment, rifles, machine guns, vehicles, radios, a man who could repair what others discarded was worth his weight in ammunition.
Walter had learned gunsmithing from his father, a Hungarian immigrant who had worked in a firearms factory in Connecticut before the depression scattered the family westward. The old man had taught his son that a gun was not a disposable tool, but a precision instrument deserving of understanding and respect. He taught him to see firearms not as collections of parts but as systems where a problem in one area might be solved by an adjustment in another.
And he taught him the most important lesson of all. When the right part isn’t available, you find another way. The gunsmith, his name tag read Craig, had turned back to his workbench, clearly considering the conversation finished. Other customers browsed the display cases, examining new rifles with synthetic stocks and stainless barrels and price tags that would have bought a car in Walter’s youth.
The shop was clean and modern, filled with the latest equipment, digital calipers, computerized barrel inspection systems, a CNC machine visible through a window to the back room. Everything state-of-the-art, everything designed for a world where replacement was cheaper than repair. Walter looked at his father’s rifle, still spread across the glass case.
The extractor was worn, true, that much was obvious, even to his aging eyes. It wasn’t grabbing the cartridge rim properly, which meant the spent casing wasn’t being pulled from the chamber reliably. In a bolt-action rifle, that meant manual extraction after every shot, which meant the rifle was effectively useless for anything requiring follow-up shots.
A genuine problem, but beyond repair. Walter had seen rifles with their stock split in half by shrapnel return to service with nothing but wire and tape. He had watched a corporal in his unit rebuild a Browning automatic rifle using parts salvaged from three different damaged weapons, none of them BRs.
He had personally kept his own and one grand functioning through 6 months of combat using techniques that would make a modern gunsmith faint. The idea that a worn extractor on a boltaction rifle was beyond repair struck him as almost comical. I’d like to try something, Alter said, his voice quiet but firm. If you don’t mind, Craig turned around, his expression hovering between annoyance and amusement.
Sir, I really don’t think it won’t take long, and if it doesn’t work, I’ll pay for your time and be on my way. Something in Walter’s tone, or perhaps in his eyes, which held a certainty that seemed out of place in a man asking permission, made Craig pause. Behind them, a younger customer had stopped browsing to watch, then another. Fine,” Craig said, sighing.
“But I’m telling you, without a new extractor, that rifle isn’t going to extract reliably. It’s simple physics. The claw is worn past tolerance.” Walter nodded as if this were useful information. Then he reached into his pocket and produced two items, a worn copper penny, dark with age, and a small folding knife.
He set them on the counter beside the disassembled rifle. Craig stared at them. “What exactly are you planning to do with those?” Walter didn’t answer. Instead, he picked up the bolt assembly with hands that moved with surprising precision, his fingers finding their positions as if guided by decades of muscle memory.
He examined the extractor closely, tilting it toward the light, running his thumbnail along the worn claw where it should grip the cartridge rim. Then he began to work. With a small knife, he carefully scored the surface of the penny, creating a cross-hatch pattern of tiny grooves. He worked slowly, methodically, his movements economical and exact.
The shop had gone quiet. Craig watched with arms crossed, his skepticism evident, but his curiosity peaked. The other customers had abandoned any pretense of browsing and gathered to observe. “The extractor isn’t actually worn beyond use,” Walter said as he worked, his voice taking on the tone of a teacher. “The claw still has enough material to grab a rim.
The problem is that it’s not sitting at the correct angle anymore. Years of use have allowed it to drift slightly outward, which reduces the tension against the cartridge. A new extractor would solve this by providing fresh metal at the proper angle. But there’s another solution. He held up the scored penny. In the field, we didn’t have new extractors.
What we had was whatever was in our pockets. The technique I’m about to show you was developed by armorers in North Africa in 1942 and spread through the army by word of mouth. I learned it from a master sergeant named Kowolski, who’d kept half his platoon’s rifles running through the Italian campaign, using nothing but pennies, wire, and creative thinking.
Walter used the knife to cut a small wedge from the penny, a tiny crescent of copper no larger than a fingernail clipping. He held it up for the gathering crowd to see. Copper is softer than steel, but harder than brass. It compresses over time, but doesn’t shatter. And a penny from before 1982 is solid copper, not copper plated zinc like the newer ones.
He reached for the bolt assembly. What I’m going to do is place this copper shim behind the extractor between it and the bolt body. This will push the extractor slightly inward, increasing its tension against the cartridge rim. The copper will conform to the space over the first few cycles, creating a custom fitted shim that restores the extractor to its original geometry.
Craig stepped closer, his skepticism visibly wavering. That’s I’ve never heard of that. Most people haven’t. It’s not in any manual. It was passed down from soldier to soldier, armorer to armorer, in situations where the manual solution wasn’t available. Walter’s fingers worked with delicate precision, seating the tiny copper wedge into position.
The prayer part comes next. You reassemble the bolt and hope you got the thickness right on the first try. Too thin and it won’t help. Too thick and the extractor won’t snap over the rim at all. He began reassembling the bolt, each component sliding into place with the practiced ease of someone who had performed this action thousands of times.
His hands, which had seemed merely weathered before, now appeared to belong to a surgeon or a watchmaker, precise, unhurried, absolutely certain. When the bolt was assembled, Walter held it up and worked the action several times, dryling it with an empty chamber. The click of the extractor snapping over an imaginary cartridge rim was audible in the silent shop.
He nodded, satisfied. Should work now, but there’s only one way to know for sure. Craig seemed to shake himself from a trance. We have a test range in the back. I Yes, let’s test it. The small procession moved through the shop. Walter carrying the reassembled rifle, Craig carrying a box of ammunition, and half a dozen customers trailing behind like witnesses to something they didn’t fully understand, but knew was significant.
The range was a short indoor lane designed for function testing rather than marksmanship. Walter loaded a single round, cycled the bolt, and fired. The report was sharp in the enclosed space. He worked the bolt again, and the spent casing ejected cleanly, spinning through the air to land on the concrete floor with a bright metallic ring.
He loaded another round, fired, extracted clean again. Clean. Five rounds, five perfect extractions from a rifle that 20 minutes ago had been declared beyond repair. The copper shim, that tiny cresant cut from a penny older than most of the people in the room, had restored the extractor’s geometry as completely as any factory part.
Craig picked up one of the spent casings and examined the rim where the extractor had grabbed it. The marks were clean, consistent, exactly what they should be. He looked at Walter with an expression that had transformed from skepticism to something approaching awe. “Where did you serve?” he asked quietly. Walter worked the bolt one more time, checking the action.
Second Infantry Division, France, Belgium, Germany, 44 and 45. You were a gunsmith. I was a soldier, but my father taught me guns before the army taught me war. And the war taught me that the right part isn’t always available, but the right solution usually is if you know how to look for it. He set the rifle down on the shooting bench and looked at Craig directly.
You’ve got good equipment here, good training, good certifications, but somewhere along the way, the trade forgot something. Gunsmithing isn’t just about parts and specifications. It’s about understanding the system well enough to solve problems that aren’t in any manual. The men who came before us didn’t have CNC machines and overnight shipping.
They had knowledge, patience, and whatever was in their pockets, and they kept armies running. Craig was quiet for a long moment. Then he did something that surprised everyone present, perhaps including himself. He extended his hand to Walter. Would you be willing to teach me? Not just this technique, but whatever else you know, the old methods.
Walter looked at the young man’s hand, then at his face. He saw something there that he recognized. The hunger to learn, the humility to admit ignorance, the respect for knowledge that couldn’t be bought or downloaded. It was the same expression he had seen on young soldiers 70 years ago.
Men who understood that survival depended on learning from those who had survived before them. I’d be glad to, Walter said, taking the hand. But you’ll need to get yourself some old pennies. Pre-982. The new ones won’t work. Wrong metal composition. What followed over the next 2 years became something of a legend in gunsmithing circles.
Walter Novak returned to that shop every Saturday morning, and Craig closed the front counter for 2 hours while the old man taught. The lessons covered far more than the penny shim technique, though that became a signature skill that Craig would later teach to hundreds of his own students. Walter taught field expedient repairs for firing pins using cut nails, techniques for trueing bent barrels using nothing but wooden blocks and patients, methods for restoring worn trigger mechanisms that didn’t require replacement sears. But more than
techniques, Walter taught philosophy. He taught Craig to see firearms as systems rather than collections of parts, to understand why each component existed and how its function might be replicated or restored through unconventional means. He taught him that a gunsmith’s true skill wasn’t in following procedures, but in solving problems.
That the measure of expertise wasn’t how many certifications hung on your wall, but how many rifles you could save that others had given up on. Every gun that gets thrown away because someone declared it beyond repair is a failure of imagination. Walter would say, “The men who designed these rifles didn’t intend for them to be disposable.
They built them to last generations. Our job is to honor that intention by keeping them running, not to throw up our hands because a part isn’t in the catalog.” Word spread through the regional shooting community, and Craig’s shop became known as the place to bring hopeless cases. the antique rifles that other gunsmiths refused to touch.
The heirlooms that families couldn’t bear to discard but couldn’t afford to restore through conventional means. More often than not, Walter and Craig found a way. Sometimes it was a penny shim. Sometimes it was a handfitted part machined from raw stock. Sometimes it was a technique so old that it had never been written down, passed from Walter’s father to Walter to Craig, like an oral tradition spanning continents and generations.
Walter Novak passed away on a Thursday morning in April, 2 years and 4 months after that first encounter at Craig’s shop. He died at home on his farm with his father’s Winchester rifle mounted on the wall above his bed. Functioning perfectly, its extractor still held true by a crescent of copper cut from a 1941 penny.
At his funeral, Craig delivered a eulogy that was less about Walter’s war service or his family life than about what he represented. A way of thinking that the modern world had nearly forgotten. A belief that problems had solutions if you knew enough and cared enough to find them. He taught me that expertise isn’t about having all the right parts, Craig told the assembled mourers.
It’s about knowing what to do when the right parts don’t exist. He taught me that a rifle isn’t just metal and wood. It’s a connection to everyone who carried it before and a responsibility to everyone who will carry it after. And he taught me that the most valuable knowledge doesn’t come from certifications or cataloges. It comes from people like him who learned it the hard way and passed it on because they understood that some things are too important to let die.
Today, Craig’s shop offers a course called Field Expedient Repairs based entirely on Walter’s Saturday morning lessons. The waiting list is 3 months long. Students come from across the country to learn techniques that were nearly lost. Methods developed in the desperate circumstances of a world war and preserved by men who understood that true knowledge is not property but legacy.
And on the wall behind Craig’s workbench, beside his certifications and licenses, hangs a small frame containing a single worn copper penny and a handwritten note in Walter’s careful script. The right part is only one solution. The right knowledge is all of them. The next time someone tells you that something is beyond repair, consider that they might simply not know the repair, consider that somewhere someone solved that problem decades or centuries ago using nothing but understanding and whatever was at hand.
Consider that the most valuable expertise isn’t in knowing what to replace, but in knowing how to restore. Because the men who came before us didn’t have the luxury of replacement parts and overnight shipping. They had ingenuity, determination, and pennies in their pockets, and they kept the world running.
