M1 Garand Stock Refinishing

[VanceM]

Hi guys, little bit of a story.

I recently picked up and m1 garand that i wanted to do a full restoration on. One of the things that needed fixing was the stock. A large portion of the wood was chipped off by the butt plate, so naturally I had to fix it. I stripped the finish and grafted a piece of walnut on to the back and sanded it to shape. The stock was 3 different colours when stripped and well, long story short I finished it with boiled linseed oil (Didn't have any raw oil handy). Anyways the stock turned out super super dark (my test pieces didn't turn out that way so i was quite surprised). Because this isn't a collectors rifle I decided to paint a "rack number" on the side. I always liked white painted rack numbers and I think it helps cover up that chip a little more (authentic or not). I am quite new to refinishing firearms, and have experimented with a bunch of different finishing techniques before and Im not to sure about this one, I dont love it but I dont hate it ether. I plan on reparkerizing the rifle and want to take that into consideration.

I really liked the colour before but fixing that chip kind of forced my hand into stripping it all off. What do you all think, honest opinions.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yPs31ROXetrq7GX4XPnKlFQojhMySPzE/view?usp=sharing
Before
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EaD44RyO3gZsrttcp_uou7Sv_qGn3iJH/view?usp=sharing
After

 

[Snider shooter]

I would say it looks good. One of mine is pretty close to the same dark colour. To get all pieces of the stock to match is not really normal as Garands where referbed and stuff got changed out. Colour matching on another piece of wood doesn’t always work. The stock could be 80 years old. New wood and old wood don’t take stain the same.

 

[TerdFerguson]

Looks alright to me, old Walnut sometimes just comes out almost black like that. My Garand is an Italian/Danish parts gun with mismatched wood, the front handguard is extremely dark in spots like on yours, while the rear handguard is reddish brown and the stock is the classic chocolate brown walnut. One thing I did that really brought the wood to life on mine was adding a coat of Birchwood Casey tru-oil on top of the existing finish, letting it dry completely and then thoroughly buffing with fine steel wool. It will look like lacquer when it initially dries, the buffing will smooth it down and give it a more subtle shine like an aged oil finish. I thought it really brought the color out of stock which looked kind of uniform poopy brown before.

https://imgur.com/aDcz7gZ

 

[VanceM]

Looks alright to me, old Walnut sometimes just comes out almost black like that. My Garand is an Italian/Danish parts gun with mismatched wood, the front handguard is extremely dark in spots like on yours, while the rear handguard is reddish brown and the stock is the classic chocolate brown walnut. One thing I did that really brought the wood to life on mine was adding a coat of Birchwood Casey tru-oil on top of the existing finish, letting it dry completely and then thoroughly buffing with fine steel wool. It will look like lacquer when it initially dries, the buffing will smooth it down and give it a more subtle shine like an aged oil finish. I thought it really brought the color out of stock which looked kind of uniform poopy brown before.

https://imgur.com/aDcz7gZ

I might try that stuff. I was just in the city before I saw this and could have bought some then lol. I have normal wipe on polyurethane, i wonder if that would achieve the same affect. Whats that ring on the main stock just behind the ferrule. looks like someone slapped a piece of wood on it to make it longer?

 

[TerdFerguson]

Whats that ring on the main stock just behind the ferrule. looks like someone slapped a piece of wood on it to make it longer?

That's exactly what it is. The stock started life on an Italian Tipo-2 7.62 NATO Garand, which are half an inch shorter than a regular .30-06. At some point in the rifle's life it was refitted with a full length barrel and whoever did it just extended the stock instead of fitting a new one. Would have been nice if they had used some darker wood like the rest of the stock, but it's solid and adds some character to the rifle I think. Not sure about using wipe on poly, I've never tried it on a rifle stock before, but I'm sure it would achieve a similar effect in terms of adding some shine although maybe not providing as much color development.

 

[VanceM]

Interesting, I wonder why Italian stocks are shorter, I dont think that 308 barrels are any shorter than the 30-06 ones. I did some wipe on poly on a test spot it actually made the colour a touch more vibrant. Its a satin finish so not much shine. I think I realized that it wasnt the fact the stock was dark, more it was that uniform brown with no definition to the wood.

 

[Hitzy]

Interesting, I wonder why Italian stocks are shorter, I dont think that 308 barrels are any shorter than the 30-06 ones. I did some wipe on poly on a test spot it actually made the colour a touch more vibrant. Its a satin finish so not much shine. I think I realized that it wasnt the fact the stock was dark, more it was that uniform brown with no definition to the wood.

T2 7.62x51 barrels are shorter.

 

[EHG]

Interesting, I wonder why Italian stocks are shorter, I dont think that 308 barrels are any shorter than the 30-06 ones...

The Italians used new 30-06 barrels and shortened the chamber end 1/2" to rechamber them to 7.62 NATO as it was cheaper than ordering new barrels at the time.
I have a T2 and it's a Springfield barrel with the T2 7.62mm stamped on it. To accommodate the shorter barrel they shortened the Op-Rod and stock.
It's also cheaper to buy T2 stocks from Marstar or TradeEX and lengthen them for standard barrels.

 

[VanceM]

Ok that all makes sense now, so a little bit of an update on the stock, I coated it with some minwax wipe on satin polyurethane, and it seems to brighten it up a little with each coat. Not sure why but I made sure the linseed oil was dry first and these are the results.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AfPAl7Bb9WsaJPuAWenWPc96UUXLmO6D/view?usp=sharing

The actual piece is a little darker than the image, the camera wanted to compensate for the lighting but it gives it a more reddish colour which is nice. Not sure why the varnish brightens it up but it does.