Sanding the stock of a mil-surp

[peacebutready]

The Yugo Mauser rifles have got my attention. I think one is the M48 and the other is the M27/47. I don't like dirt and grime on a rifle. Is it bad taste to sand the stock to clean it up? These mil-surps don't appear to be especially collector worthy.

 

[greyling22]

do what makes you happy. I have an m1 carbine that came with a replacement greek stock. I completly sanded and refinished the stock, slimmed up the clunky wrist and grip area. looks and feels a lot better now. Do I care what the milsurp originalist group thinks, no. It makes me happy this way, and it's my gun, not theirs.

now, I'd caution about duracoating an original colt single action revolver, but a yugo mauser, go for it.

 

[GooseGestapo]

Use a gel type paint remover, and lightly buff with 0000 steel wool.
Then after drying, use a medium-dark walnut stain, then coat/seal with boiled linseed oil, working oil in with 0000 steel wool. Follow up with 2-3coats of blo.
Try to allow any stampings on wood remain legible as this establishes history/credentials of the firearm.

Otherwise, it's your gun...

 

[jaytex1969]

You'll likely get a 50-50 split on the replies.

On one hand, the Yugo's are not collectors. On the other hand, neither were any of the others, initially.

If it's yours, do what you wish. You could try "sweating" the cosmoline out (many people put the stock in a black trash bag with absorbent material inside and place it in the sun on a hot day). After that, wipe down with BLO and see where you are. If its still not to your liking, you can then go further.

If you want to keep the stock original, Boyd's makes a good replacement. Then you can keep the original original. Or pick up another issue type stock to experiment with, if the numbers on yours match.

Look around at other people's efforts and learn from their successes and failures first.

You could also just buy one already altered to your liking. It would likely be cheaper and you'd not be altering a "period correct" rifle.

Have fun. I love my M-48's.

 

[shuvelrider]

You can also pour boiling water onto the stock, it will raise the grain as it dries. This helps to pull the grease out of the wood, and also helps to get rid of the "dead fuzzy" wood on the surface, from age. You will probably do the boiling water 2,3, or 4 times, depending on the grime and grease you have. Then re-finish as described above, I like using tung oil after the stain.

 

[Mn Fats]

Did it to my military rifle (won't say which one out fear of getting kicked off the forum) and it turned out incredible. Spent 3 weeks on it and saved all the insignias perfectly. Do whatever floats your boat.

 

[JeffG]

Some of the grime you are seeing might be cosmoline. Try stripping first and see what you have. Then go with finishing options. Be aware, some of the Yugos out there are handsome rifles. I recently bought one at Gander that turned out to be unfired. It took some cleaning to get down to the bare gun. The bottom line is, it's your rifle, and unless it's going into a military collection, you can do what you want.... Hint: Youtube, Yugo Mauser.

 

[Sam1911]

I'd definitely try the most gentle cleaning methods first and see if you can get it looking respectable without heavy sanding and then heavy refinishing.

That's the treatment that this Yugo got:


1) There's a difference between removing grime and cosmoline and dirt, on the one hand, and stripping away the details, honest wear, and character the rifle's picked up over the years.
2) Stripping back to bare, raw wood, just to slather on a stain so you can make it dark again has a sort of circular daftness to it, no?
3) Unless you've got some experience with sanding wood for a high quality result, it is much harder than you probably expect to get a high quality result. And much easier to make mistakes, some of which really can't be un-made. It is VERY easy to tell that a stock's been sanded down, 90% of the time, and it's never a good thing that you can tell. Wood-to-metal fit, lost or blurred cartouches, deadened edges which should be crisp, contours that aren't right, small dings which have become hollows due to someone trying to sand them out, and just the basic missed sanding swirls which show up once you put on your finish. Lots of mistakes waiting to be made. 400 grit is about as coarse as I'd recommend, and if you feel like you aren't making any progress, GOOD. You might be going light enough.
4) The perils of stain... oh, yes. <shudder>

It isn't hard to put a nice looking finish on a rifle. It is, however, hard to stain a rifle stock that you've sanded down and have it come out looking not like something you bought at the unfinished furniture warehouse. Natural-toned oil finishes are best. Either linseed oil or one of the other similar oil finishes like Tung oil, Watco, or Birchwood Casey's TruOil, which does a nice job. What you want to avoid is adding pigments which will get absorbed into raw wood and turn everything muddy, splotchy, and just "dead." There is a real art to using stains for high-quality results, but it takes a lot of care and experience. And it doesn't really reflect the rifle-maker's practices.
Wood darkens on its own over time and it will again even if you lightly sand it and clean it and it comes out lighter than you like. A good oil finish will seal, protect and nourish the wood and add a little color, but won't deaden the figure or cause the grain to darken differentially like a bad stain job.

I think of a gentle refinishing with oil as letting the gun look it's best, rather than trying to make it look like I want.

 

[JeffG]

Remember, a lot of Yugos were fairly fresh, just stored, and cleaned periodically. Sam1911's advice is solid, go easy, and let the rifle's character shine.

 

[Mosin Bubba]

I honestly would recommend against it. I guess I'm a hypocrite given my handle, but it's easier to screw up a stock than to make it look perty.

Like someone else said, getting a stock to pine-board white on an old, greasy milsurp can be pretty much impossible. You've definitely got to decide when to stop, as you can get caught up trying to make it too clean and make the stock too skinny or destroy corners.

With woodworking in general, it's hard to fix something if you over-do it. So if you're redoing a stock,
-start with the gentlest stripper
-start with the most conservative grit
-start with the lightest stain color
-start with the thinnest cost of finish

and work up from there. You can always sand more or apply more color, but you have to do some pretty dumb stuff to get excess stain back out and there's no putting over-sanded wood back on.

I've refinished a couple cheap guns, some turned out looking great and some turned out looking pretty mediocre. I'm definitely not good enough to get an expert result, so I wouldn't do it to a gun I cared about.

Oh, and if you're going to stain - get a can of pre stain conditioner, or seal it with a super-thin coat of poly set for 48 hours. Otherwise it's going to blotch.

 

[peacebutready]

Be aware, some of the Yugos out there are handsome rifles. I recently bought one at Gander that turned out to be unfired.

Too personal to ask how much you paid?

 

[Merle1]

You'll likely get a 50-50 split on the replies.

On one hand, the Yugo's are not collectors. On the other hand, neither were any of the others, initially.

If it's yours, do what you wish. You could try "sweating" the cosmoline out (many people put the stock in a black trash bag with absorbent material inside and place it in the sun on a hot day). After that, wipe down with BLO and see where you are. If its still not to your liking, you can then go further.

If you want to keep the stock original, Boyd's makes a good replacement. Then you can keep the original original. Or pick up another issue type stock to experiment with, if the numbers on yours match.

Look around at other people's efforts and learn from their successes and failures first.

You could also just buy one already altered to your liking. It would likely be cheaper and you'd not be altering a "period correct" rifle.

Have fun. I love my M-48's.

This pretty well sums it up.

 

[hdwhit]

peacebutready wrote:
I don't like dirt and grime on a rifle.

First, I would suggest you try Homer Formby's "Build Up Remover" to remove the grime. If it doesn't work to your satisfaction, you will not have damaged the finish and you'll be able to use a refinisher or start sanding as you feel necessary.

 

[hdwhit]

Sam 1911 wrote:
It is, however, hard to stain a rifle stock that you've sanded down and have it come out looking not like something you bought at the unfinished furniture warehouse.

Amen.

Years ago, I spent the summer refinishing an M-1 Carbine stock (in the 1970's I could get surplus "less than perfect" stocks for under $10) with 400 grit sandpaper and Tung Oil. Messing it up. Stripping the Tung Oil off and trying again. And a third time. In the end, I learned by experience what I was doing and ended up with a golden blonde stock that I was really proud of. Nobody else cared for it because it wasn't brown or black, but it was my rifle.

 

[Sam1911]

Since I posted that picture I'll go ahead and re-post the rest of that story, with a moral: Look carefully for cool surprises as you refinish!

On that rifle:

A pal of mine was buying a Mitchell's refurbished one some years ago. That really tickled his fancy. At the time they had some kind of a deal where they were sellling old beaters as well and I got one of those for all of about $139. When I got it the stock was almost black and oil soaked. Figuring that I had very little to lose with a gentle, minimum-impact refinish job, I steamed the stock and scrubbed and scrubbed, and even eventually sanded just a little, before applying many coats of a penetrating oil.

When I was done I found that the stock had been worked on, and that long ago. After a lot of thinking about it, I've come to believe that these fixes were completed by the original builders and that is just amazing to me.

In two places there are exquisitely crafted dovetailed (and tapered!) patches (what woodworkers refer to as "Dutchman" repairs). I do (or have done, I should say) this kind of work professionally, and I am VERY impressed with this level of craftsmanship. It appears from the figure of the wood that the rouged-out stock had some defects -- probably pinhole knots -- but the builders decided to use it anyway. They (or whomever) hand cut these repairs, one into the butt and one in the thinnest part of the forearm beside the barrel, and fit just plain airtight dutchmen, and then pinned them with wooden pins! You really, REALLY have to look to see these things. In fact, the one on the forearm is no bigger than 3/4"x 1/2" x 1/8" at its wide point.

I can't fathom what set of circumstances would have made wood stock blanks -- for a common, run of the mill military rifle -- so valuable in Yugoslavia as to necessitate several hours of careful hand work by a very skilled artisan to save one from the burn pile. Obviously labor was MUCH cheaper than material at that point!

Only slightly less unbelievable is that this rifle would have survived whatever circumstances brought it to its former dilapidated state, been sold for surplus, imported here, and just about accidentally be passed on to someone who would make the effort to spruce it up, and who would recognize and appreciate the tiny details that show the efforts of the craftsman who put his hands to it.

The repair at the forestock -- You can see where the grain figure swirled there, probably around a knot:

The buttstock repair with wood pin to lock it in:

 

[grampajack]

The Yugo Mauser rifles have got my attention. I think one is the M48 and the other is the M27/47. I don't like dirt and grime on a rifle. Is it bad taste to sand the stock to clean it up? These mil-surps don't appear to be especially collector worthy.

That's what people said about 1903 Springfields at one point. I wouldn't dream of doing it personally, but it's your rifle.

 

[peacebutready]

Thanks, all.

 

[shuvelrider]

Since I posted that picture I'll go ahead and re-post the rest of that story, with a moral: Look carefully for cool surprises as you refinish!

On that rifle:

A pal of mine was buying a Mitchell's refurbished one some years ago. That really tickled his fancy. At the time they had some kind of a deal where they were sellling old beaters as well and I got one of those for all of about $139. When I got it the stock was almost black and oil soaked. Figuring that I had very little to lose with a gentle, minimum-impact refinish job, I steamed the stock and scrubbed and scrubbed, and even eventually sanded just a little, before applying many coats of a penetrating oil.

When I was done I found that the stock had been worked on, and that long ago. After a lot of thinking about it, I've come to believe that these fixes were completed by the original builders and that is just amazing to me.

In two places there are exquisitely crafted dovetailed (and tapered!) patches (what woodworkers refer to as "Dutchman" repairs). I do (or have done, I should say) this kind of work professionally, and I am VERY impressed with this level of craftsmanship. It appears from the figure of the wood that the rouged-out stock had some defects -- probably pinhole knots -- but the builders decided to use it anyway. They (or whomever) hand cut these repairs, one into the butt and one in the thinnest part of the forearm beside the barrel, and fit just plain airtight dutchmen, and then pinned them with wooden pins! You really, REALLY have to look to see these things. In fact, the one on the forearm is no bigger than 3/4"x 1/2" x 1/8" at its wide point.

I can't fathom what set of circumstances would have made wood stock blanks -- for a common, run of the mill military rifle -- so valuable in Yugoslavia as to necessitate several hours of careful hand work by a very skilled artisan to save one from the burn pile. Obviously labor was MUCH cheaper than material at that point!

Only slightly less unbelievable is that this rifle would have survived whatever circumstances brought it to its former dilapidated state, been sold for surplus, imported here, and just about accidentally be passed on to someone who would make the effort to spruce it up, and who would recognize and appreciate the tiny details that show the efforts of the craftsman who put his hands to it.

The repair at the forestock -- You can see where the grain figure swirled there, probably around a knot:

The buttstock repair with wood pin to lock it in:

That is not uncommon to see such stock repairs from foreign arsenals, many Brit Enfield rifles carry the same type repairs. I own a couple of #1 Mark III rifles repaired in the same fashion. It would have been cheaper to repair this way by enlisted armorer's, and then put away for war reserve.

 

[Laphroaig]

A pretty gentle method I've been using on dirty milsurp stocks is to take it off the rifle, strip all the metal, and then spray it with a degreaser like simple green or purple power. Let it soak for 15 mins or half an hour then rinse it with the garden hose. I typically do the same thing a second time. After the second rinse I get a iron and a wet towel or rag and try to raise the grain on dings where the wood grains aren't broken.

Any sanding I'd do after it dries would be very light. Steel wool might be better. I'd refinish with an appropriate wood finish like linseed or toung oil.