As good as it's going to get.

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SaxonPig

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A couple years back I ordered an M1 Carbine from the CMP. I had heard that they were scraping the bottom of the barrel on these and I should not expect to get a pretty one. Boy, more prophetic words were never spoken. When the rifle arrived it was pretty bad.

Worse, it took so dang long <deleted> to arrive, I thought they had forgotten me. While waiting I saw another Carbine on Gunbroker. I threw a bid at it just for grins and bought it at the starting price which was about $150 less than I paid for CMP rifle that had not yet arrived.

When the CMP gun finally reached the house, it was not a whole lot better than the really ratty gun I got off GB. So, wanting a plinker I kept the worse looking GB rifle and took the CMP rifle to a local show and sold it for $75 more than I paid for it.

I see that 4/44 barrel date and imagine it going ashore at Omaha Beach. It definitely looks like it's been through a war... or three. The metal is awful and wood is worse. Last week I finally got around to attempting a refinish on the stock. Not dinged badly, but horribly oil soaked. I could not get all the oil out, but it looks a little better.

Functions fine. Fun to shoot and I don't have to worry about damaging it at this point. I'm trying to get a mag pouch for the butt deleted.


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Your stock has some nice grain. The metal on mine is so bad there's no point to worrying much about having better wood.
 
I cleaned up the stock on an M1 that my brother had bought from the CMP. The finish on the barrel and receiver were okay; a little thin in some spots but still looking good and more than serviceable. The wood was quite another story as the stock was quite dark in color and somewhat dry in a number of places. I lightly sanded it down and refinished it with a mixture of a couple different tints of polyurethane stain that came close to matching other U.S. service rifles that my brother had. Overall it turned out pretty good and made for a nice addition to his collection.
 
Saxon, did ya try soaking it in laundry bleach before refinishing it? I refinished an original Spencer that went thru "the Civil War" and believe me it looked like it. I soaked the stock in bleach for about 2-3 days and then dried it out really well. It swelled slightly while it was drying out, so sanding it down was really simple, infact it brought out some markings on the stock that weren't visible prior to the soaking and final sanding. Needless to say it came out looking pretty nice, and the fella I did it for was very pleased, knowing that the value had depreciated quite a bit, but the gun was his.:rolleyes:
 
On a stock like that, the dishwasher method is a great place to start. Cleans the grime, pops out many of the dents, etc.

I've saved a good number of 'firewood-grade' stocks that way.
 
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