Firearm smells awful

Have you cleaned it?

That's a really weird problem. If it's something on the metal it should clean off relatively easily. If it's the wood, probably be hard.

Could it have been in a fire and absorbed the odor?
I would take off all the wood, and clean the wood with Ballistol.
The smell could be trapped on the underside of the forearm.

Dave

if the wood wasn't properly treated/coated in may be impossible to remove the smell. You can try to seal it again, or maybe just a new stock?

Ozone chamber.

I have a buddy that works for a home restoration company. They have an ozone room that they put smoke damaged merchandise it to remove the odors. You could probably search out a company like that it your area and see if they can do it for you for a reasonable price.

Brownells sells new wood for a fair price.
I really cant see a piece of metal holding scent as bad as you describe so it is probably the wood.
You may be able to seal the smell in with some clear coat but I'd probably just replace it.
Good luck with the stench.
T

That is odd

Perhaps a smoker owned it??

Wash everything you can get to with mineral spirits.

Then if that don't do any good, spray the wood with Febreze and wipe it off several times.

http://www.febreze.com/en-US/odor-problem/smoke-odor

rc

Baking soda will take the bluing off & rust anything else you put in the case from now on.

Try what I said to try in post #11 before you do anything rash.

rc

dpote said:

Could it have been in a fire and absorbed the odor?
I would take off all the wood, and clean the wood with Ballistol.
The smell could be trapped on the underside of the forearm.

Dave

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My thoughts exactly....house fire perhaps, and the wood absorbed the smoke/odor. May need to dance another jig and put on some new furniture. That'll take care of the odor problem.

First of all what does it smell like?

A strong smoke smell would raise concern on my part if the gun has been in a fire. Face it for $100.00 that gun has a questionable history.

I would clean it first outdoors with kerosene or alcohol to get to bare metal and clean the wood and then triple my money by reselling it.

When I lived in the UK, I had a deactivated AKM that smelled like that; like it had been in a fire or had been sitting near a wood stove for a long time.

I got rid of the smell by putting it through the dishwasher!

I broke it down into as many pieces as possible and put it in the dishwasher.

The dishwasher detergents stripped the metal parts of all oil and grease, which was what was holding the smell. I oiled it up and it smelled of brand new oil, nothing else.

The dishwasher also stripped the stock of all of its finish.
A lot of people warn against this, and I would normally use a less harsh method myself, but this was a desparate situation.
Once stripped, 90% of the smell had gone from the wood. It seemed strongest on the bottom edge of the stock, so I sanded it a little to get down to fresh wood, which got rid of even more smell.
I then sprayed all the wood with Frebreeze, and left it outside for a couple of days to air out (it was summer).
The smell was almost all gone by that point, and when I applied a few coats of shellac, it disappeared forever.

Hope that helps, I know how nauseating and pervasive the smell can be...

I'd say leave it. That's character IMO

What about taking the wood off and having it placed in a "hot tank" like what most automotive shops/engine building shops/etc might have for a little while?

I think as others have stated, I'd focus more on the wood than the steel, though I might consider taking it apart and baking the metal parts in an oven at the lowest possible temp. I managed to pull a thread up about that here:

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=166938

edit: and the whole time I was reading this I couldn't help but think of the smelly car episode of Seinfeld:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pEhqiCD27E

Thats all well and good if he wants to remove every trace of stock finish right down to bare stripped wood.

But I don't think he wants to do that quite yet.

There are other less invasive things to try first before stripping all the finish off and starting over.

rc

As stated in #11, spray it with Febreze and wipe it down. I would also completely remove the action and barrel from the stock, wipe down and oil the metal parts, scrub the wood with Murphy's Oil Soap, and then do the Febreze trick. The smell should be gone..

Just like the title says.

I bought a used 336c with the JM stamp. I bought it for a song and a dance ($100), but man does it smell like a camp fire something awful. I mean just handling the gun leaves me smelling like an all nighter at a bon fire.

It is smelling up my safe, what can I do to get this smell off without damaging anything?

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Well I find that guns that have been cold blued smell like cat urine, but that does not seem to be the case.

The dishwasher detergents stripped the metal parts of all oil and grease, which was what was holding the smell. I oiled it up and it smelled of brand new oil, nothing else.

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I think dishwasher soaps have lye in them, I use that and hot water when cleaning BP guns, and when I use corrosive blanks. Don't let your gun sit with this stuff on it though, because it will destroy the finish. I would suggest completely disassembling the gun, and cleaning it like normal, then cleaning it with a powerful degreaser (RC Mentioned mineral spirits, I like TruStrip, or Everclear) then wash the gun out with hot water, then wipe down again with oil and reassemble. If it is stuck in the wood then it would likely go away if you sanded it down and re-finished it (MinWax products work OK). If you do all that you will have new gun smell

For a hundred bucks you got a ''steal''. Do what ever it takes to make you happy, but I'd shoot some black powder rounds through it to mark it with a nice ''new'' smell....