Just cleaned up a SKS...

[steve-in-kville]

I bought a SKS several month ago and didn't have the time to degrease it until today. I stripped the rifle and scrubbed everything with a commercial grease remover. The wood came out quite bleached, without the gloss it had before.

Do I need to coat the stock with anything? Or do I let it go?

[JRiddle]

Is there a finish on the rifle that just got 'dulled' out by the cleaning? or do you have raw wood?

[steve-in-kville]

Not sure... I've never seen a store-bought degreaser take anything down to bare wood. But then maybe the finish was cheap. I degreased a Mosin Nagant years ago and just used kerosine and never had a problem.

I could give it a coat of linseed oil and see what happens.

[JRiddle]

Yeah, that couldn't hurt anything.  You'll be able to see what, if any, finish is left too.  If it soaks into the wood, then you know the finish is gone, and I would put on another coat of oil in a few days.  Just something to protect it from the fluctuations humidity, and exposure to weather. otherwise you'll end up with warped and/or split stock.  I had a SKS years ago, the wood in the stock, nor it's finish, were its strongpoints.  Good Luck

[GameHauler]

I have not decreased my new AK yet and I have to admit why
is I know nothing about this type of rifle
I found a screw to hold the stock on under the receiver
and removed it and the stock did not want to budge.
Maybe I will find time to research that this weekend.
Anyway my question was why did you not remove  the wood
before degreasing?

[84Jim]

You might want to try some Birchwood Casey Tru-Oil.  I just degreased and cleaned up a Springfield stock and it turned out really nice with the Tru-Oil.  Linseed oil can take forever to dry.

[Hank08]

Use the TRUOIL, forget the linseed oil.  You can spray it on or rub it in by hand.
H08

[Spanky]

Linseed oil can take forever to dry.

Use the TRUOIL, forget the linseed oil. 

Linseed oil does take a long time to dry.
Use Boiled Linseed Oil instead... it has driers in it and does not stay tacky forever like linseed oil.
Thin the BLO down to 50/50 and rub it on by hand... it makes a beautiful finish and is very easy to touch up.



Spanky

[flyingbrickracing]

Try Tung oil,dries to touch in about 3 hrs and cures in 24.
I did the stock of my 91/30 and it came out good.
Tung oil was used on wood furniture before stains and varnishes became popular and is very easy to apply.
Coat liberally and let set for about 10 minutes,wipe off extra and let set for 24 hours give or take.Buff wood and repeat.
You can stain the wood before oiling and the more coats of oil you put on the more gloss.
I did 3 and came out with a nice satin finish that is not sticky or greasy at all.
hope this helps

[bluecow]

floor past wax works as well. buff it in good.  tung oil is about the simplest and one of the best.

[swissfan]

I agree with the tung oil, dries fairly quick and looks good.  I'll try to take some photos of a K31 stock I refinished w/tung oil.

[MGMorden]

ALL the finish came off of my SKS stock with simple soap and water when I tried to remove the grease from it.  It ended up being the first and only milsurp rifle that I ended up refinishing (kinda had to).  I used G31 Linseed Oil on the SKS and it turned out well, but on most other refinished (all on commercial rifles) that I've done since, I 've started using Tung Oil which has worked beautifully.  It's already plenty thin enough that keeping runs or drips from forming is easy, and the finish, though time consuming to build up, turns out beautiful.

[swordfish]

I was given an SKS a week ago. It had been left in the elements, back of a pick-up I was told. Anyway the guy didn't want it any more as the wood was F'ed up and there was some lite corrosion on the receiver. 600 grt wet sand paper took care of the lite corrosion and I stripped the wood with stripper. Completely disassembled first, of course. Sanded wood with 220 to 600 wet sand and final 0000 steel wool untill it was smooth as glass. The wood looked good but very light in color, so I put a stain to darken it. It looks awesome now. The last step is now to apply "gun-sav-er" satin spray on finish to give it the light gloss look and also keeps it weather resistant. I did the same with a Marlin 336 and it came out looking better than new. Yup, I did say better, as I was able to get the exact color I wanted with the stain. I'm not big on the laminate woods, but it's better than the composite look.

Below is the 336 I did not long ago. It was trashed when I got it, was thinking of purchasing new stocks for it, but decided to try to refinish it. Glad I did.