Quoted:
that is hand rubbed boiled linseed oil and pure tung oil from the "pure milk paint company" after removing the cosmo with mineral sprits/blo and sitting in my hot garage over the summer. nothing invasive––no sanding, staining, shellac, varnish... all i did was clean them and rub them with oil. all the markings are intact. the stocks look shiny because they are still wet and in the sun. they are both unusually light, though.
You applied a historically incorrect permanent topical finish –– "refinished" them. Not as bad as sanding and tru-oiling, sure, but it turns off serious Finn rifle collectors just as much as if you painted them hot pink.
Altering the original finish is never necessary, and rarely a good idea, on rifles as collectible as these. Production (let alone import) numbers on these is FAR lower than most Nazi, Japanese, and USGI rifles out there, yet I bet you wouldn't do this to a bringback k98, which I guarantee you are far more common (just not currently available on the open market).
Quoted:
Quoted:
Two other common Finn stock treatments are pine tar and potassium permanganate.
+1 These two methods produce the most
historically correct finish.
Dutch
I wouldn't say that, quite.
Finnish military use of pine tar and/or potassium permanganate has never been actually documented. They do, however, produce the most
authentic appearance when used in the restoration of otherwise refinished Finn rifle stocks. Also, both are a colorant, not a finish –– finishes on Finn riflestocks ranged from varnish to linseed oil/wax (etc.) depending on who was making the stocks and when (and add to that than Civil Guard men "owned" their rifles and could do whatever to them), and documentation stating any Finn wood finish is virtually non-existent. You will get lots of info off the net about it, but it's mostly wrong, conjecture, or assumption.
For the best info anywhere on Finn and Soviet/Russian rifles, you need to check out
gunboards.com. There are other Mosin sites, but they mostly just spread bad info. The premier collectors and experts (worldwide, literally the "guys who wrote the books") on the material are present at gunboards.