Stripping wood on C&R rifles

[Nardo1895]

Certainly if there is any original finish remaining I'd think long and hard about doing anything other than cleaning it and maybe re-oiling depending on what the original finish was. Oil can soften some original finishes so its not a cure all.

But I have seen a lot of wood on CMP rifles that was awful, especially those coming out of the Philippines. Some of the Greek returns were pretty bad too. I've seen a few surplus carbines come out of Ethiopia that were worse than awful. My opinion only - anything that a USGI or a US arsenal does to a firearm is part of its history and in most cases should be preserved. Once it leaves our shores I have trouble thinking that what comes back has "added patina (or history)". My bias with little basis in fact.

CMP or other export returns that are in awful shape are a candidate for restoration in my book. I try and start with the least aggressive method and then work up as required. Some of these stocks are so oil/cosmoline soaked nothing short of oven cleaner will work.

Soap and water, paint thinner, lacquer thinner, oven cleaner are my progressive methods. I have not found a lot of use for paint/varnish remover unless a PO re-varnished the stock. I try and avoid sanding except to remove fuzz. I do try and steam out dents. I have occasionally found the need to stain sapwood to match the heartwood, but I've only had a couple stocks that needed that. Depending on the wood, I may use a water, alcohol or oil based stain. For a final finish on a military stock I prefer boiled linseed oil thinned with turpentine. Tung oil does provide better protection but I think it builds a finish that starts to look like varnish if you're not careful.

[bigbossman]

CMP or other export returns that are in awful shape are a candidate for restoration in my book. I try and start with the least aggressive method and then work up as required. Some of these stocks are so oil/cosmoline soaked nothing short of oven cleaner will work.

100% in agreement. Sometimes, the only sensible option is to start from scratch. I've been buying a few Garand stocks from Numrich lately, mostly USGI or Korean-era hardwood. They need to be completely stripped and re-finished, no other way around it. But - once done they look very good, and I've had no trouble selling a Garand that has a refinished stock set.

[God Bless America]

Hello, I have actually read two posts here on restoring wood on certain rifles. I was reading several articles from the CMP on the subject. I have several C&R rifles I would like to strip and re-finish the wood.
The CMP recommended Miniwax Antique Furniture Refinisher for stripping and that was for a Garand.
I have 2 Trapdoors, 1 Krag, 1 1903 and several Garands I would like to refinish.
I was curious if anyone has used the Miniwax product as a stripping agent. If anyone has used it or has something else for the above mentioned rifles I would love to get some feed back.

Thank you,

Jay

Nothing outperforms citri-strip for me.

But we need to see those stocks. Post pics!

What will you use for stain, and refinishing?

I've done a few.

[musketjon]

MEK (Methyl Ethyl Keytone) and 4-0 steel wool will strip it to the bare wood. It was outlawed in the PRK about 15 years ago so you'll have to get it from out-of-state but Nevada and Aridzona aren't that far. It's what I use on all my milsurps, and then blo to finish. No stain required.

[fal_762x51]

[CartridgeCalls]

Citristrip works well to strip to bare wood and is non toxic.

[Mezcalfud]

Back in the days of rifles hidden under cosmoline, I would us one of those cheap high pressure hand steamers then soap up with Dawn and repeat. A week to dry. You'd have to knock down the raised grain a bit with fine wet sanding or copper wool using pure tung/orange oil mix, wipe it all off an reapply a few coats of said mix by hand. The steamer worked wonders on dings and metal too, just keep it away from any stock cartouches.

The above was for nasty nasty stocks! Anything thing else just got a wiping of my oil mix and then some feednwax!

And I was advised by an old timer to use copper wool vs steel so if any gets imbedded or in cracks, etc. It won't rust and stain.

[Jeff213]

If you can pickup a CMP new production birch stock cheap, you can finish those up really pretty if you strip all the ugly red stain off and use boiled linseed oil. I get lots of compliments on my blonde M1, and since it wasn't a historical GI stock I didn't feel at all bad about refinishing it.

[bigbossman]

If you can pickup a CMP new production birch stock cheap, you can finish those up really pretty if you strip all the ugly red stain off and use boiled linseed oil. I get lots of compliments on my blonde M1, and since it wasn't a historical GI stock I didn't feel at all bad about refinishing it.

I got an IHC Garand from the DCM, way back when, that was in birch furniture:

[Nardo1895]

Mark Novak (Anvil 095) uses toilet ring wax on some vintage military stocks. I've not tried it yet but did pick up a ring.

He has an interesting perspective on originality. He advocates for preservation of old firearms but some of what he calls preservation others would call refinishing. In particular he advocates for rust bluing of some vintage rifles as a way to arrest rust formation while still preserving what existing finish remains. He takes a similar approach to wood finishing/repairs. If you have not watched his YouTube videos its well worth your time.

[SVT-40]

Mark Novak (Anvil 095) uses toilet ring wax on some vintage military stocks. I've not tried it yet but did pick up a ring.

He has an interesting perspective on originality. He advocates for preservation of old firearms but some of what he calls preservation others would call refinishing. In particular he advocates for rust bluing of some vintage rifles as a way to arrest rust formation while still preserving what existing finish remains. He takes a similar approach to wood finishing/repairs. If you have not watched his YouTube videos its well worth your time.

He also goes by the name "Bubba"...

[Capybara]

Agreed, there are only "original" and "Bubba", nothing in-between.

[Nardo1895]

I disagree. There is a long distance between original and Bubba. Bubba uses steel wool, naval jelly and engraves his DL# with an electro-pencil. Most of what Novak does is on firearms that are just shy of junk. He claims his rust bluing process does not affect any original finish but converts areas of rust to a form of iron oxide that is inert. Obvioudly it works on firearms that were originally rust blued. I'm not advocating use of his process but it is interesting and I would like to try it on a junk rifle sometime.

I also think if folks are only interested in 100% original without any minor repairs you better have a huge budget. It's good to know what you are buying in any case.

[Capybara]

I disagree. There is a long distance between original and Bubba. Bubba uses steel wool, naval jelly and engraves his DL# with an electro-pencil. Most of what Novak does is on firearms that are just shy of junk. He claims his rust bluing process does not affect any original finish but converts areas of rust to a form of iron oxide that is inert. Obvioudly it works on firearms that were originally rust blued. I'm not advocating use of his process but it is interesting and I would like to try it on a junk rifle sometime.

I also think if folks are only interested in 100% original without any minor repairs you better have a huge budget. It's good to know what you are buying in any case.

I think what you are speaking about is commensurate with how serious of a collector a person is. For me, I have some C&Rs that are shooters. For instance, I had a Hungarian M44 action that I bought that was in a very obviously Russian stock. I hung onto it for years and then one day a kindly CGer offered to trade me straight across for an 02 Hungarian stock he had in exchange for my Russian stock. Is my Hungarian M44 Bubba'd? Semantics, it is a Hungarian action in a Hungarian stock, but they are obviously not number matched. But if I was a collector and wanted a matching serial numbers 02 M44, I would consider my M44 to be Bubba'd.

Of course, same with CMP stuff. Almost all CMP rifles are mixmasters because that was how the CMP received them from various arsenals here and overseas. So is a CMP Garand a Bubba'd rifle? Compared to a non-import market original that's all matching, perhaps?

I think there is a lot of gray area, depending on what kinds of guns you are collecting, what exists, and whether or not they were military or only civilian. I don't have the money to be a purist collector because those types of guns in 2022 are getting pretty costly, but I know some collectors who only have the best of the best, original and unmolested, but they are high net worth individuals who can drop hundreds of thousands or millions into their collections.

For them, they mostly will only buy original, unmolested, un-refinished guns and they spend a ton to do so. They consider anything that's not factory original to be touched by Bubba sometime in its history.