I have had a 1942 made Mosin Nagant fora couple of years now, which is an excellent shooter. Recently i came across a refinished Mauser K98 on the range which looked extremely beautiful. After looking at the few youtube videos, I found refinishing a rifle was a pretty simple deal. So I set off on refinishing my Mosin nagant couple of weeks ago.
The stock was coated with varnish and cosmoline, Had quite a few scratches on the stock, and was cosmoline feel in warm weather.
To soak the excess cosmoline, I wrapped the stock in paper and stuck it in my car for a week. We have open parking at work and the car gets quite hot in afternoon, The paper soaked off quite a bit of oil and cosmoline, which made my job to strip the varnish and cosmoline easier.
Next came stripping off the cosmoline and varnish, I used a stripping agent called citristrip, to remove the the existing finish, and a pressure washer to clean the excess citiristrip of the Stock. I dried the stock again in the car for a day.
Sanded the Stock along the gran with 100 grit sand paper followed by 220 grit and 320 grit sand paper for surface prep.
Next used 3 coats of Minwax Expresso 273 stain, and 4 coats of semi gloss Poly-Urethane for sealing the wood. After every coat of stain, I used a 0000 steel wool on the stock followed by cleaning the surface with a clean rag. For the last Poly-Urethane coat I lightly sanded the stock with 320 grit sand paper, and applied a light finish coat.
the results:
What amazing work sandy_3126 well done! Looks beautiful 
