Picked up an OLD EARLY CAI import Rem 1917 Eddy, still in cosmo. Have done well with the metal parts, need recommendations on what to do about the stock that is full of cosmo, sticky on the outside, etc. Not sure how to start.
Thanks in advance.
I dont want anything that will eliminate it from Military Shoots!
Mike
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First, avoid “oven clearners", lye and other corrosive chemcials. I know others recommend them, I don't.
Second, it is linseed soaked wood. The packing chemicals are oil based. A small amount of mineral sprits and a roll of paper towels to start. Murphy's Oil wood soap and water, many coats, wrap in a black plastic bag and place in the sun. More Murphy's oil soap and water.
At some point, you will say enough. A light coat of linseed oil, or tong oil, and you are good to go.
Ric
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Mineral spirits will do it with fluffy rags like old sweat pants, but be careful what kind of mineral spirits you get. Generally they are very stinky, but if you look, you can get odorless Mineral spirits.
The stink from regular mineral spirits will linger a very long time, get the odorless!
Gary
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I used odorless mineral spirits for the cleaning of the metal parts, bore, etc.
What does the murphys and the plastic bag with sun do for me? What process other than cosmo removal does that perform? Will the water expand/swell the wood?
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I've been reluctant to use more chemicals to remove oil and cosmoline from the wood. Sunshine and a roll of paper towels has worked pretty good for me. A blow dryer will also get a lot of that stuff to bleed up to the surface, I just avoid heating the wood up too much. It will keep coming out for a while, if it's really soaked. I use cheap house brand engine degreaser on the metal, no ill effects. It smells like kerosene to me. Congratulations on your new baby, I'm jealous. Give us a picture if you can.
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Water and Murphy's will remove the water soluable stuff, i.e. dirt and grime. Petro stuff only works on oil based stuff. 90 year old linseed oil will have hardened and water will not swell it much, if at all. Wood was made to get and be wet with water. You don't have to soak it in a tub, but a bucket of hot water will not hurt anything.
The wrap in paper towels in a garbage bag is to heat the oils and grease in the wood fiber after you lay it out in the sun. There will be a lot in there. You can use a hair dryer, but not a heat gun. From personal experience, you can get it hot enough to get the grease to burn as it runs off the stock!
Best, Ric
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Gary, I like the smell of mineral spirits! But then I use old cigar butts to flux my lead pot. To each their own. Ric
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Thanks Ric. That helps me huge in knowing WHY i'm doing what you suggested. If I can get some CA sun to emerge, I will get started. Until then, I cant reassemble as the stock will defile the polished state of the steel work.
On the same note, but different-- laugh now.
I checked headspace on the rifle and came up with GO plus .003......... apparently that is exceptionally tight for a m17. 1.9400 +.003/4
The NO-GO is 1.9406
I'm flippin excited. A really good bore, really good lands (it is counterbored so the crown is crap most likely) and now a really tight chamber (per many others I have read about that were .010 past the field gauge). Thats about what a current factory rifle might be set at, well a bit looser I'd hope but pretty good for a military loose chamber.
The only broken part is the rear sight elevator adj. spring, a little V shaped leaf. It was broken before I tried to unstick the adjuster and the adjuster works now but would hold better with a valid spring. I might try my hand at making one. If I put a tall enough coil spring under it (all of 1.5 turns), it might not fall out on the first shot either. I will try to source a replacement spring.
A screw is REALLY stuck on the front sling/barrel band. It will require heat, force, luck, Kroil and all that is Holy if I want it out.
But otherwise I believe I scored really well.
BTW: Paid $125 for it.
Cant find a date on the barrel. Only P, a triangle circle with C in it,, the number 2 and a funny thing on the underside of the barrel midforend area. I don't think it got a new barrel ever. But I also think it was preserved from use some as well. Compared to many others. Certainly not one of the 1950's surplus ones that were mint and got chopped into sporters.
I have other mil surps but dont shoot any of them. I will be shooting this one as it is '06, a pet. And you can bet if it's accurate, I be throwing my hat in to the Postals finally.
Its a really friggin heavy rifle. My bull barrel varmint rifles are up there with this thing. WW1 troops had stones! The Germans with the mausers had it easy. Its a few ounces lighter than the Garand!
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If the sun won't come out here's another idea.
A fellow I shot with used a hotplate and held the stock over it at a distance until the oil started to weep from the stock. The wood will need to get pretty warm.. Wipe with a dry cloth and repeat until it stops or is at a level of clean that you like. Then whatever cleaner you like and go from there.
Good luck on your new rifle.
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First, avoid “oven clearners", lye and other corrosive chemcials. I know others recommend them, I don't.
Second, it is linseed soaked wood. The packing chemicals are oil based. A small amount of mineral sprits and a roll of paper towels to start. Murphy's Oil wood soap and water, many coats, wrap in a black plastic bag and place in the sun. More Murphy's oil soap and water.
At some point, you will say enough. A light coat of linseed oil, or tong oil, and you are good to go.
Ric
Ric - don't want to argue, and understand your take. but... Have to admit, we used to use oven cleaner on all the Mausers (myself and my German gunshop/shooting buddies when I was there) we cleaned up.. Can't leave it on long, but man it makes quick work of a messy stock.
I would not hesitate to use it again (and have a stock that really needs it!) with proper caution! YMMV...
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Oscar+++.,
"it works fast” is the problem. Having worked with enough base spills on railroad ties that have more grease and creoste than you can believe, the first time it gets wet, you have swelling, splitting and dry wood.
It will work, but if you are not carefull, in a couple of years you have punky wood and crap for a stock.
JMHO, Ric
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corerf sez:
I checked headspace on the rifle and came up with GO plus .003......... apparently that is exceptionally tight for a m17. 1.9400 +.003/4
The NO-GO is 1.9406
ken sez:
the no-go is maybe 1.946x ?
< > ken
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Ken; If the sun won't come out, and you don't want to hold the stock over a hot plate until the grease oozes out, you could wrap it in cloth and stand or lay it on top of the water heater. I have done this in several cases where I wanted constant moderate heat, but not with a cosmoline soaked gun stock (yet). Brodie
B.E.Brickey
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Follow up post: Progress made.
I finished the metalwork and refurb of action back when I started the thread. But the wood cleanup had not started. Work, family- weather- initiative, have all kept me from even touching the stock.
So I got the flu like everyone else did and had a week off work. Im self employed to the boss was OK with being off w/o pay.
I had purchased a $25 my cost, Remington 550 that the action was severely stuck due to goop, lack of maintenance and rust from salt air. Figured worst case is it's a good starter project for gunsmithing.
Last night I finished the cleanup and it was finished due to a 2 week soak in solvent and then 3 cycles in an ultrasonic bath. Wheh, that works. Anyway, I wrapped up the metal refurb there and did a 4.5 lb trigger job and felt INITIATIVE!
Today I did not attend church as usual on Sunday morn, rather will be there tonight. So I pulled out the solvent again and followed SOME of Ric's advice.
No offense, I just truncated some of the love due to lack of need.
I began with really dirty mineral spirits, used for many gun refurbs. Poured off the cleaner potion and left debris below. Just like cleaning car parts, the metal pan and 0000 wool came out. I was gentle at first and wow the mineral spirits really cut the crap! Thanks to Ric.
I then I decided to take a chance on 00 wool with what was now a mostly clean wiped down stock, no longer super fuzzy from dirt particles, cosmo goo and lord knows what.
00 Wool on the dry stock cut some of the old oil finish off with the deep dirt. Didn't take finish off, just a layer or two cut. So I then went back with solvent on the 00 wool and finished up. The cuts made by 00 allowed the solvent to cut better the really black areas of buildup but not allowing all finish to be removed. As well the stock now has a satin feel, like a fairly fresh oiled stock.
My desire was not to make it pretty, just useful and clean enough to handle, store and use for the next 20 years.
I am at Ric's 2nd step. SUN and BLACK BAG purging. I started late today so I only have SOME sun but tomorrow I may get a good 6 hours of full hot sun. Been warm the last 4 days, very warm. Pushing 75-80. I also used my compressor to blow out all debris, wool fibers and solvent remaining. I have an exceptionally clean stock, retaining a very warm walnut color. One of the handguards is a bit light but I believe it may be a mismatch to the stock set. The wood is just a diff color. I also noticed that my Remington built 1917 is tatooed R everywhere but like 2 parts. The forend tip of the stock has a W stamped under the escucheon. So I am guessing I got a Winchester stock (no other marks on the stock but a number under the butt plate).
Who cares. The action headspaced really tight, the bore is great, the metalwork really cleaned up better than I even expected it to. (sorry no before pics were taken, too stupid to do so).
So I will give it a few days to leak in the sun, allow a few days for it to dry and settle and maybe next weekend, slap 2 coats of BLO on it and reassemble.
An aside- I love steel wool. Its so easy on parts, I can rub bluing as hard and fast as I can(wet) and with 0000 never injure any finish. It will cut synthetic stock finishes pretty easy but they are crap anyway if I have to rub on them!
Looking forward to pulling the trigger.
So- for milsurp postal, I can't modify anything, correct? Trigger, bedding-- both have to stay as issued (or built)- correct? The trigger doesn't leave much to mess with any except surfaces. And the trigger is not awful anyway. I like the '06 and I have yet to dip my toe into a match. I need to cut my teeth this year on something and I think this rifle has a chance to perform pretty good- just based on what I see and measure.
Thats it-
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It sounds like you have a good start! Hope all works well, as I like BLO rubbed out well. Ric
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I have taken kitty litter (fresh, not used!), ground it into a relatively fine powder and packed it onto heavily oil soaked milsurp stocks, and leeched a pretty fair amount of juice out of them. A little laborious and time consuming, but like the punch line to an old joke, “what's time to a pig?"
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wait untill summer and put it in an old fashioned meal garbage can and leave it in it for several days when it is very hot outside. even if you think it is clean it will surprise you how much more oil comes to the surface. argie1891
if you think you have it figured out then you just dont understand
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RAIN, COLD, RAIN--- It got about 4 hours of lousy sun.
I will go ahead and shoot the thing as is, I'll take the advice and wait till Summer to finish the stock. Now that its clean, I have no issues refitting and shooting. Pretty will come later.
Plus the BLO will do better in the warm nights between coats.
Range report will be coming soon.
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I've used acetone as a cleaner for some old greasy stocks. first do it outside, then get a set of chemical proof gloves take a rag and pour some acetone on the rag and start scrubbing. Repeat as necessary. Another trick is to use acetone and whiting. Whiting can be found at lowes or home depot. get a small dish and first pour in some powdered whiting and mix until it's like a slurry. use an old paintbrush to apply the slurry on to the wood. What happens is the acetone will loosen up and liquify the old oil or grease in the wood and the whiting which is white in color will start to turn brown. When you see the whiting turn brown rest assured that the old grease and oil are being removed. Stay away from wood bleaches. I had one brand react with the oil and grease that a chemical reaction took place. The plastic container was getting hot and the reaction was causing the wood bleach to foam,and fizz and expanding in the container. so you can scratch that one off your list. Frank
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I resorted to using kitty litter on a cosmoline soaked Garand stock once. I put it in a long box and covered it with kitty litter that I ground fine by hand. It leeched an unbelievable amount of oil out of the wood and wasn't as laborious as it sounds. Only fly in the ointment was the stock forever after smelled of cat p*ss. I guess I should have used fresh kitty litter...
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