I bought an SKS at a show a couple months back.  It came in a cardboard box and had a leather sling, mag pouch and oil can pouch.  They are MUSTY.  I let them sit in baking soda for a while and when cleaning up yesterday I remembered about them, took them out and cleaned them up to find they still stink like hell.  I left them out overnight in the kitchen and now the whole place smells like dank old leather.

Anyone got a trick for getting these things to be a little more odor neutral or are they just shot and I should toss them?  I'd really like to save at least the mag pouch if I could.

Use a 50/50 bleach/water mixture to kill all the mold spores, let it dry out completely, then put them in some containers with crumpled up newspapers and cedar shavings for a few days.  Pull them out of there and put some good leather preservitive on them and you should be OK.

Balming

Benny:

Try some Murphy's oil soap applied with a damp sponge.  This should soften, clean, preserve, and remove the stink from the leather.  We used this on all the horse tack back in the day when I co-managed a horse farm.

-White Horse

Thanks guys, will do.

Soak it in cider. [:D] Get it?
Seriously, my buddy just got an SKS last weekend and he had the same problem. He cleaned the gun real good, then he refinished the stock, using boiled linseed oil to seal the wood. The thing smells like 9th grade shop class now.
AB