Mosin Nagant 1891/30 question plus price check

Yes these tiger stripes are present. I stripped the old finish, sanded the stock, heated it up with the hair dryer, degreased and stained it and now I'm on the 5th layer of Tru Oil.

Purist will say you wrecked it but that looks dam fine to me.
 
No offense, your rifle. But there was a time when, say, Arisakas were plentiful so people were sanding the stocks and doing other random stuff, now the collector value is ruined.

If it were me, I'd skip the sanding of the stock and oil. Do everything else and then simply reapply shellac carefully.
 
No offense taken. Wood is just part of the project. Eventually this going to be a good looking shooter with adjustable front sight assembly, smooth bolt and decent trigger, so in other words...I don't care much for maintaining any collector's value.
 
I have checked into shellac a few times - it seems difficult to find the correct colour to match the original.

It seems to me that if you can't match the colour - careful staining plus tru-oil would end up being more durable and possibly closer to the original in looks.
 
Nestor: Is that first pic showing the rifle the way you bought it? If so, that's a beauty!

Note to Mosin Nagant buyers: Although this may not apply to the latest flood of 91/30 rifles, be mighty careful about checking what you have before you start "improving" your rifle.

This example may only show how dumb and uninformed I was, but here goes: Years ago, probably 25 or 30, I bought old milsurp rifles, mostly because I liked them. I do believe that deep down, something told me that these rifles were worth having for reasons other than I just simply liked them. (Had to give myself a wee bit of credit! :p)

Example: One of the old rifles I managed to acquire turned out to be a SAT barreled Model 91. About three years ago, I was looking on a US site and people were posting pics of the stampings on the receivers of their Mosin Nagants. I posted a shot of this SAT rifle. Whoa! Big $hit$torm of PM's and posts! Long story short, my rifle turns out to be one of two or three known examples in North America. I have had discussions with the owner of one other that he recently purchased for $12,500 US$.

Moral of the story: Don't be too quick to get out the sidegrinder and 40grit sandpaper, until you have checked the rifle!

In advance of the naysayers and nitpickers, I realize that this is an unusual and extreme case. With today's availability to research on the 'net, there is no excuse for not doing your due diligence. Back in the days when I was buying these rifles, I didn't have the money to buy books AND guns, so I chose guns. :)

Edit: I now check each potential purchase if possible, and have checked most of my other old rifles. I have found a couple of other examples of very uncommon rifles in the pile!
 
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Got lucky last summer at Epps, got two Hex ones from 31 and 34, beautifull rifles in mint shape for 209.00 a piece...

A real bargain if you ask me...
I am keeping them in cosmoline for projects in the future... JP.
 
I'm thinking about buying another one.

Bolt was polished. I'm done with the wood, but decided to tune the high gloss down to satin gloss with 0000 steel wool. Ordered a stainless steel, Solid Industries firing pin spring and beautiful upper handguard with brass caps.



Chamber and barrel throat are taking bath in the engine degreaser to get rid off the Cosmoline.

 
I have checked into shellac a few times - it seems difficult to find the correct colour to match the original.

It seems to me that if you can't match the colour - careful staining plus tru-oil would end up being more durable and possibly closer to the original in looks.

You're looking for the dark garnet from woodessence.com.

The colour does actually vary from blonde through orange and all the way to dark garnet (most common) for the post-war shellac dips on the 91/30s. Since shellac can be thinned with alcohol and reapplied simply with a brush I don't think you're really harming the collector's value nearly as much as any sort of sanding would.
 
Done.

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