TSP = tri-sodium phosphate.  Get it at the local paint store.

My late friend loved to restore old guns, the more beat-up the better. & his restorations are pretty nice.  Soaking the stock in a TSP solution was his standard step #1 in restoring an old stock.

A paint store is the correct place.  It used to be available at supermarkets but that was closed off.  What's called TSP these days isn't.  Only paint stores have the real stuff.

After a thorough look at all the old German proofs, this rifle is an old one. No powder charge was recorded on the barrel and the number that some though were a date, no date. I just looked at Halps photo site at his posted Kessler, almost the same number as mine, just off a bit and he is sure his is early 1890's manufacture, and his breech block is marked the same too and mine is probably too. Those stamped numbers are the serial numbers. I think it has been mentioned before that these gun actions were made at a factory and then sold to the builders. So my old Kessler and his may have been made at the same factory. Just assembled or sold by a different retailer. I will be waiting for me when I get home Friday.
Mike

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I'll guess trisodium phosphate.

For Werndl brass, the .348 works (but as you say, it's a little short)... 
If you have access to Starline .50-110 brass, it too makes good Werndl brass, but the neck is a little thick, and needs turning.   
.50-110 makes excellent basic brass for a whole host of cartridges that the .348 is often used to form... and has the advantage of starting out as a cylinder.

Paul F.

I wonder just how the boiling would effect any carvings on the stock? Any ideas here?
I think maybe just letting it soak in the solution may be a bit safer.

The stocks on these rifles were boiled in a washing soda solution.

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Thanks for the kind words, Mike. And yes, it is a Savage Model 45 (Super Sporter). I came across it as a barreled action and a few parts at a gun show a while back. I had planned on putting it back to it's original configuration, but the missing (and not easily) obtainable parts made that a bit problematic. Then I remembered a 95 Mauser stock and bottom metal that I had sitting around gathering dust and thought, hmm. The stock was pretty easy to fit to the action, but of course the Mauser bottom metal would not mate up to the Savage action, but the guard screw spacing was the same. So, I sliced an inch or so off the top of the magazine so it would drop in the stock but clear the bottom of the Savage action. I made a spacer/filler that filled the void between the floorplate and the bottom of the action. It functions like a bench rest follower of sorts, so the rifle now is single shot only. I added a nice old Weaver KV scope in a slightly modified Buehler base/ring set that originally was on a 721 Remingtion. Chambering is 30-06, and it shoots very well with the old 311413 Lyman cast bullet and 2400 powder. I call it my Frankenrifle.

A couple pics of it's current configuration:

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