nwilliams
Member
So not long ago I picked up this FN Israeli Mauser at a local shop. It needed a good home and fo just under $200 I couldn't resist and besides I needed a new project. The bore is in excellent shape, shiny with good rifling, the metal is also fairly good with only a few spots of minor pitting here and there. The stock however was pretty nasty, in fact even the 1st pic shows it after a little cleaning, basically it was solid black.
Anyway I plan to leave the metal the way it is, I like the original bluing and in not interested in going down that route anyway. After hours of cleaning all the surface rust off and polishing it up as much as possible with steel wool and Flitz I have it the way I want it. The stock however has required a lot more work and so I stocked up on some oven cleaner and went to work.
In the end the stock required five cans of heavy duty oven cleaner, hot water, some very light sand paper, steel wool and finally a light coat of linseed oil. I'm pretty happy with the results, I wanted the gun to retain that battle worn look and not overly restored, basically the gun is a relic and that's they way I want to keep it. My main goal was to bring it back to life and restore the original look of it, mostly the stock.
Here are some very crappy progress pics, I thought ahead and new I'd want some before and after shots.
Pretty much how it looked when I got it, although this is cleaned up a little with hot water, so the stock was a little darker than this before the pic was taken...
Here is the stock after a few cans of oven cleaner and some polishing...
Anyway I plan to leave the metal the way it is, I like the original bluing and in not interested in going down that route anyway. After hours of cleaning all the surface rust off and polishing it up as much as possible with steel wool and Flitz I have it the way I want it. The stock however has required a lot more work and so I stocked up on some oven cleaner and went to work.
In the end the stock required five cans of heavy duty oven cleaner, hot water, some very light sand paper, steel wool and finally a light coat of linseed oil. I'm pretty happy with the results, I wanted the gun to retain that battle worn look and not overly restored, basically the gun is a relic and that's they way I want to keep it. My main goal was to bring it back to life and restore the original look of it, mostly the stock.
Here are some very crappy progress pics, I thought ahead and new I'd want some before and after shots.
Pretty much how it looked when I got it, although this is cleaned up a little with hot water, so the stock was a little darker than this before the pic was taken...
Here is the stock after a few cans of oven cleaner and some polishing...
