"New" Mosin Nagant- I hate cosmoline!

[TNsailorman]

I am sorry to diagree but Simple Green does work quite well. I used it on the last 2 24/47's that I bought and they were heavily soaked in grease and oil. I do not soak the stocks in a bath of simple green, I brush the stuff on and let set about 20 minutes and then rinse it off using hot water and a brush as stated previously. Drying is usually done in the attic in the summer after I get the grease out. I guess it would be possible to get a stock hot enough to damage it with a hair dryer if you set the hair dryer on high and left it in one spot for a long enough period of time. I have seen stock put into drying cabinets to dry them out and those cabinets get pretty warm with two or three 100 watt light bulbs to heat them. I have also used the "whiting" mix from Brownell's made into a paste with acetone to remove oil. Once you get the worst of the grease off the exterior of the stock, then the whiting comes into play as it will get deeper into the stock because of the acetone and will draw the grease out as the acetone dries. Oil soaked deep into a stock takes a mighty long time to remove and I am not convinced that you can ever get all of it out without damaging the stock regardless of what method used.

[mikeschuylkill]

I've had good results with automotive brake cleaner in the aerosol spray cans.
Mike

[TNsailorman]

Mike, I have used brake cleaner from time to time myself and it does work. There are quite a few cleaners that will work depending on how much grease is on the wood or in the wood. Especially how deep the grease goes. James

[Gunfreak25]

Well I did post the above information for a reason, but if you choose not to follow it that is your choice. You can lead a horse to water but you can't force him to drink. But I still stand by my previous words, in that I strongly advise against using chemicals on wood, that are not designed for wood.

Candyman is our leading stock expert on the surplusrifleforum. He has wrote a hundred articles on the how to's of gunstock work. After 22 years of stock work, he has tried everything out there, found what works and what doesn't, what's appropriate and what's not. He's done it all. The techniques he settled on today are ones he's found to be perfectly appropriate for wood work, and they work very well.


http://www.surplusrifleforum.com/vie...?f=137&t=65922
http://www.surplusrifleforum.com/viewforum.php?f=137

[Ricochet]

Acetone will also take the shellac right off a Mosin. I know some of you want to do that and put on an oil finish, but I like 'em the way the Russians finished 'em.

[Gunfreak25]

I'd have to agree, unless the shellac is flaking, I like to leave it on. Looks original that way.

[TNsailorman]

I do not know Candyman or of his expertise. He may be all you say he is but if he makes a blanket statement not to use chemcials, then he looses me. It is impossible to use anything to remove grease or finish of any kind from a stock without using chemicals. If you state what chemcials not to use I could probably agree with some or maybe all of them. I think maybe we are talking about apples and oranges here. A "collector" rifle is one thing and a using rifle is another. I am not a collector and never will be. However I do appreciate the history of some rifles makes it important to leave them as are as much as possible. I don't really consider moisin-nagant or mausers to be in this catatgory because there were literally millions of them made--unless there is a specific bit of history to associate with that individual rifle. This would include a Russian nagant known to have been used at Stalingrad or Kursk or some other important battle in russia or a Mauser being able to be traced to usage at Normandy, The Bulge, etc. Collectors are a breed unto themselves and make up their own rules as what they think constitutes a collector piece. I was referring to ordinary rifles which were in bad shape and the metal or stock needed de-greasing and or refinishing. The main ingredient in Simple Green is Polyethylene Glycol Ether. It has many uses. It is used in medicine, toothpaste as a dispersant. It also is used in polyurethanes such as elastomeric fibers(spandex) and foam cushions. In its PEG form it is used as a heat transfer fluid in electronic testers. It is used as the main ingredient of paintball fill since it is thick and flexible. PEG is used to preserve objects whcih have been salvaged from underwater, one case being the warship VASA in Stockholm, Sweden. It replaces water in wooden objects, which makes the wood dimensionally stable and prevents warping or shrinking of the wood. Cauction is always important when trying any new product, which includes reading the label to find what the contents of the mixture are and looking them up to see whether they are harmful to your intended use; in this case; wood. I have been cleaning military stocks or re-finishing them since about 1954 or 55. I was 12 years old at the time and I cleaned up(rifle was in really good shape) a rifle that my uncle picked up on the 1st day of the invasion of Guadalcanal. He was in the first wave ashore. All I had to do was clean the 13 years of accummulated dried grease on the metal and clean dirt and a mixture of oil and dust from the stock. I have been doing so since then for myself, family and friends. In the early days I made a few mistakes but as time went by I became very cautious about my methods and what I used. I keep old wooden forearms, stocks and such around as experimental pieces to try new products and methods on before going to an actual rifle stock. I don't consider myself an "expert" but I do know what I am talking about when I make a recommendation about a product or method. It is my own experience and not just repeating something I have heard someone talking about. I don't claim to know all or even close to all there is to know about refinsihing rifles. I am still learning and hope to continue for a few more years. So far, Simple Green is the easiest and less damaging way I have found to remove grease from rifle but it is not the only way. Strippers such as Strip-X do work when removing finishes such as the new hard Poly finishes or shellac but they do not do too well removing the grease soaked into a stock unless employed with others chemicals that can penetrate deep to remove the oil from the wood. This has been my experience anyway. James

[35 Whelen]

Why do so many people flip out at the thought of using chemicals on gun wood? The choices are 1) sandpaper ( a BIG no-no- in my book) or 2) a chemical stripper. I started out stripping stocks with wood stripper I bought from Lowe's. After I realized that it was the same caustic stuuf we know as oven cleaner, I switch to Easy-Off, then ordinary Dollar General brand oven cleaner. That's right, I use oven cleaner...over and over and over. These days, if I want to clean (not strip) a stock and rifle of cosmoline, I disassemble it and put the whole she-bang in the wifes dishwasher. I know, I know...bad for the wood. But to date I've never damaged a stock.
So, here are some pics of the stocks that I should've ruined since I used chemicals on them:
Ruger 10/22 factory stock stripped with oven cleaner, then finished with linseed oil cut with turpentine:


I also did another Ruger off of a 77 bolt rifle with identical results. Beautiful stock.

Here's a shot of an Enfield 2A stock that was stripped with Dollar General oven cleaner then finished with a linseed oil/turpentine mix. The metal was slathered with black paint and I also stripped it with oven cleaner:



Here's another I did a couple of weeks ago. Put the whole thing in the dishwasher on high heat which washed all the cosmoline off the metal and leeched it out of the stock, then applied the aforementioned BLO/turpentine:


Yet another "victim" of first, degreaser at the carwash, then the dishwasher:


If you're using a wood stripper of oven cleaner and the stock is turning green, black, pink, or any other color, I'd first check my method before blaming the chemicals.

35W

[Gunfreak25]

Well you guys seem to speak pretty highly of simple green, I am not at all familiar with the stuff, I might have to give it a whack sometime. It seems we all have a way of doing things and I think it's best kept that we should all do what works best for ourselves. Besides if we all did it the same way it would be a little boring!