As mentioned in the 577 Snider thread the fellow I cleaned that rifle up for inherited a bunch of old firearms that had been sitting in a corner of his father's body shop for decades. One that cleaned up nicely was this M1884 SN# 542629 he gave me for my efforts put forth on the Snider. The barrel had already been chopped to 24" and the stock was cut to just a stub beyond the barrel band and there were no sights. But other than being dirty with some surface rust and a bit of gray paint overspray up and down one side it was in pretty good shape.  The barrel was in excellent shape except for a couple rather large pits where it appeared a spider nest had unfortunately lingered too long about 16" up from the breech end. The stock was also in excellent condition with a cartouche that took a direct ding at some point but 1892 but can still be read as can the circle P.

After cleaning it up I attached a 1902 rear sight with one screw as the hole spacing is about 1/2" shorter on the TD than the 1898 Krag Sporter the sight originally came on. For the front it was a ramp for a dovetail sight held on with JB Weld to try it out but it wasn't shot much and has been sitting in the back of the safe for quite a while.

Taking it out recently the first impression coming back was how gangly the 24" barrel looked in that stubby stock. Comparing it to pictures of TD carbine stocks it appeared to be about 2" shorter so to keep it in proportion I cut the barrel to 20" and re-attached the front sight base.  For the rear sight I made a simple receiver sight that is attached via the tang screw and being the same width as the tang sits nicely above it extending about 1.5" forward to just behind the receiver back edge. It is adjustable some for elevation but once a good cast bullet load is found I'll get the correct front sight to match and then just fine tune it.  Looking forward to working up the cast load and taking it to the range often and possibly to the woods a time or two.

I'd take it out for a turn at the groundhogs.  It may look like hell to the purist in me but it has a cool look of a varmint slayer to me.t

We're gonna need pics of targets or dead animals from this old boy.