Hi all, I thought I'd share this for anyone doing something similar. I bought a
Civilian Marksmanship Program service grade M1 Garand in 2014 as a
Christmas gift to myself that year.



It's all Springfield Armory, made in 1953 with a recently-made Boyd's walnut stock.



From what I could find out the stock was only stained so I decided to clean it up
and apply Tung oil.



I used a citrus-based cleaner to strip the wood of the stain and whatever dirt and oils
there were. I let the wood fully dry out in my basement where a dehumidifier kept it dry.



I had never done anything like this so it was neat seeing how much lighter the wood
looked after doing this.



I ordered natural Tung oil from Real Milk Paint Company and bought some pure orange oil
to act as a natural solvent. I mixed a 50/50 of the orange and Tung oils for the first couple of coats.
My wife said the orange oil made the basement smell so nice.



I made a setup that would help with applying the oil. Some scrap wood, and with
cheap hinges and a wood dowel I bought I made the rig in the pics. The dowel I cut in two and fit inside
the stock's two cleaning kit compartments and the hinged setup allowed me to apply the oil
with a minimum of handling.



The first two coats were absorbed by the wood like a sponge. A combination of the dry wood
and the orange oil solvent. It dried out quickly for those coats, but the third and successive
ones were pure Tung oil and took longer and longer to dry out between applications. I did a
total of six coats, the last one, a thin coat, took about two weeks to dry out. Finally,
I took the stock, placed it downward, and put a little Tung oil in the cleaning compartments
just to be thorough.  



I reassembled the rifle and it looks so much better with the Tung oiled stock.
It even feels more solid to me, which I guess is from all the oil it soaked up.



This was a real learning experience for me. The orange oil and the rig helped a lot,
and I kept the rig so that when I need to oil the stock periodically it is easy to do.

Nice job!  I have done similar, then finished it with a few coats of Gunny's Paste applied with a bunched-up nylon stocking for a bit of water resistance.

Good job OP.

Looks great OP.  Did you use any stain or did all the color come from the tung oil?