Military Rifle Stock Restoration

Inspection & De-Oiling

With the wood’s surface exposed, I inspect for previously hidden stamps and markings, physical damage and deep oil staining. Military stocks are usually treated with special oils to resist expansion from moisture absorption. However, these aren’t the oils staining the wood. The culprit is copiously applied gun oil soaking into the wood end-grain around the receiver, trigger guard and muzzle. These dark oil stains can be very unattractive and need to be drawn out if you hope to restore the stock to its original appearance.

You can’t use a colored wood stain, even an oil-based one, over wood whose pores are already full of oil. The same goes for whatever remains of the stock’s existing oil finish. Unless the washed stock looks good enough, I could get a satisfactory appearance with just a few fresh applications of boiled linseed oil. My next step is to draw out all the oil already in it.

I have three techniques for getting old oil out of wood: 1) Wiping with a solvent like lacquer thinner on a terrycloth rag will get excess oil off the surface; 2) Carefully warming the wood with a heat gun or hair dryer until the oil rises up and begins to pool on top, allowing me to wipe it away with an absorbent paper towel; 3) Applying whiting to the surface of the wood to draw out and absorb the oil slowly.

Wiping down with a clean, solvent-soaked rag needs no explanation. The heat method must be carefully done to avoid burning the wood, adding to your refinishing problems. You have to be quick with your wiping hand too, or else the oil will get reabsorbed by the wood. This technique uses a lot of towels.

The whiting method is the slowest technique for removing oil from stocks but the most efficient. Whiting, available from Brownells, is calcium carbonate powder mixed with solvent into a paste of a consistency somewhat thinner than pancake batter. Use a brush to paint the batter on oily areas of the stock, allowing the solvent to penetrate and dissolve oils, which are then absorbed by the powder on
the surface.

It works best when the stock is warmed up and kept warm during the leeching process, making sunny summer days the ideal time to apply. The stock can be warmed up with a heat gun or just left in the sunshine. The heat gets the oils closer to the surface, where they’ll be easier to capture.

After application, the stock is placed in a black plastic bag to help the solvent resist evaporation and assist heat absorption. You leave the bag in the sun all day and let nature do the rest. When you open up the bag, you’ll see the formerly white powder on the surface has turned various funky colors as it sucked up solvent-liberated oil. At this point you can brush the contaminated whiting off with a plastic bristle brush. It can take many applications to remove deep oil stains.