Sealing The China Stock

Blackthorne

Blackthorne

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Keswick, Ontario
YES! I searched on SEAL and STOCK and didn't come up with anything specific :D

OK. As we all know here the only prerequisite for modifying your guns is that they are in your hands... :D

I have looked at allot of stock options. I have also refreshed my mind on why wood stocks are unstable to begin with (humidity in the wood).

Now I know I am not going to get it as stable as synthetic, but wouldn't stripping, conditioning (read drying) and re-sealing the Chicom stock impart improved accuracy without spending $150 to $500 to $1000 on a synthetic stock?

I mean, I want an accurate rifle, but it's primary function in life is for making deer dead. LCF is not an issue here. I have an AR for that :D
 
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I had very great result with birchwood casey tru-oil, it seals the wood and give a nice hard-like-nail finish
You can polish the final coat to give it a nice hand rubbed finish, removing some shine.

Also I've bedded the stock with some brownells acraglass bedding kit. Easy to work with and cost like 20$

so for 20$ bedding kit + 15-20$ stock refinishing kit+ some time to do it, you got a nice looking wood stock that is also kinda weatherproof and alot more stable.

This wood is still pretty soft so without bedding, after shooting for a while, even with my tru-oil finish, the receiver was digging trough the stock. But with bedding it will last for some hundred shot, dunno exactly.
Well for 40$ you can't loose much.

I'll keep my chu-wood stock until some troy SOPMOD stock come over here.
 
I just finished mine...

I understand that the earlier ones actually had decent wood on them. I bought mine used and it has been in the country for a while. It was filthy (almost black) and stunk of smoke, and looked like garbage.

I started by sanding with 60 grit, and worked my way up to 400. The original finish was just on the surface, so I didn't have to use a stripper or sand very far. I was greeted by a very interesting looking wood under there. First off, it's not the soft chu wood I thought it was. There are long sweeping curves in the grain with some compression marks. The right side and centre are heartwood, and the left surface is sapwood....two tone! I sanded the inletting to a finer finish as well.

I found it hard not to "drag wood" during my trigger pull before, so I addressed this by sanding a lot of wood out of the offending area. Now there is enough clearance between the stock and my finger all the time.

I had already closed the gap between the barrel band and stock ferrule when I unitized it. All it took was some J-b weld and some time being careful with a file.

I drilled a hole down the centre of the front rivet on the sling mounting plate. I wanted to tap the inside of the rivet but there wasn't enough material, so the rivet had to go. In it's place I epoxied a sling swivel stud. This will mount a harris bipod as long as the footprint of the bipod is modified to fit around the sling swivel. We'll get to that when I have some spare cash.

I hogged out some wood with my dremel where the reciever contacts, and bedded it with devcon. I also did the "horseshoe" area at the rear of the reciever. The one mistake was using too little so that I wouldn't make a mess. There were a few bubbles, but otherwise it's fine. The devcon was expensive, but that's for a whole pound of it and there's a lot left over for other projects. The bedding job includes the inside and outside of the stock liner. I left the stock liner embedded in the bedding job becuase it is in full contact with the reciever where it would otherwise wear out the bedding job from the repeated removal of the action. I also epoxied over the wood of the magazine "well", and filed it down square and wide enough to fit all of my magazines tight yet still being able to smoothly install and remove them.

I started the finish by staining the sapwood for several coats in an attempt to match the tones. A light tint on the heartwood helped blend it together. It certainly still looks different on each side, but it's not a glaring difference.

A few coats of tung oil went on to seal it up. It was easy, just rub it in and let it sit. I did the inletting and all other corners of the stock to seal it up. I put two applications of beeswax on top of it for the final finish, again making sure every little corner gets it.

The finished product is certainly not a masterpiece, but it sure is the nicest norinco stock I ever saw! The wood looks really exotic with the way the grain is on the dark side. It's still not the piece of wood I would have picked for a stock, but I made the best of it. Other parts of it don't look so nice, but overall I'm sure it's going to turn a few heads at the range, just because it looks different from the other m14's. I'm especially happy that I have a fine, clean finish and that it's sealed from moisture.

The next project is to set up the scope that I just bought in the EE today! I'll need a mount and some rings like...yesterday. I'm going to some woodworking places next week to score a decent scrap of walnut or something. That is going to become a raised cheekpiece fixed to the stock. I'm going to screw it into the top in two or three places, and fill the heads. I'll also epoxy or glue it on to reinforce it. It will get the same finish as the rest of the stock.
 
Blackthorne said:
YES! I searched on SEAL and STOCK and didn't come up with anything specific :D

OK. As we all know here the only prerequisite for modifying your guns is that they are in your hands... :D

I have looked at allot of stock options. I have also refreshed my mind on why wood stocks are unstable to begin with (humidity in the wood).

Now I know I am not going to get it as stable as synthetic, but wouldn't stripping, conditioning (read drying) and re-sealing the Chicom stock impart improved accuracy without spending $150 to $500 to $1000 on a synthetic stock?

I mean, I want an accurate rifle, but it's primary function in life is for making deer dead. LCF is not an issue here. I have an AR for that :D
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FWIW I paid $50 with shipping for my USGI fibreglass stock from Fred's.
 
tried fred's, they'll ship to my blaine washington address, but not to my canadian address..... something about not wanting to renew thier export permit and all the hassles with them being "m14" related. Numrich now has the same policy as well.
 
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