The Russian Mosin Nagant Forum

Would you refinish this stock? If so would it decrease the value or collectibility of This rifle? How would you go about restoring the stock to make it look as authentic as possible?

Pics are too dark but general consensus no leave it be

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

I suspect that one should answer those questions before they buy. That said, the consensus here would be to leave it alone. We would also say that the gun looks pretty authentic. And, yes, refinishing would kill the value of this piece.

What's wrong with it? That's Soviet military normal, milsurps are not pretty commercial sporters. That is the look of a war rifle that has seen real history, took most of a century to get that look and refinishing it would destroy it in ten seconds. Leave it be if for no other reason than to protect your investment, milsurp collectors hate to see refinished milsurps, and never pay top value for them,plus they say extremely unflattering things about whoever did the Bubba work on it.

The short answer, NO!!!

Longcolt44 wrote: ↑Tue Nov 05, 2019 8:11 pm The short answer, NO!!!

The long answer "Hell NO!"

Leave it! The world has enough Bubbas

So you want to make it look like a Shiny Purdy Remchester? That's not what it is. You have an old Milsurp with Character that should be appreciated for what it is.

No .

In case it hasn't been mentioned, NO, leave it alone.

Chuck_w wrote: ↑Tue Nov 05, 2019 10:45 am Would you refinish this stock? If so would it decrease the value or collectibility of This rifle? How would you go about restoring the stock to make it look as authentic as possible?

Honestly that already looks authentic especially when you figure whoever it was last issued to probably got it exactly like that as it was. Plus unless your a soviet arsenal that would absolutely tank it's value. Plus even if you were a soviet arsenal I doubt they cared about the cosmetics.

i would leave it be,clean the bore and enjoy shooting it for what it is,a piece of history.Lots of mosins out there until i can afford to purchase them all.

I would not refinish or make steps toward "restoration" of any military collector rifle as it would destroy to me the collector value of the weapon. People who buy or sell in the bounds of said Collector pieces often end up with a rifle of value only to a certain few "collectors" of possibly sullied pieces. Generally these over cleaned and over "restored" pieces are not long at the their first over priced values and are found in safes with other oddities years from now. I for one do not believe in restoration of any collector rifle adding value except to a few odd ball collectors who later down the road end up loosing money on their rifles. They often defend their purchases as being the best they could find at the time they bought. Money is earned by the genuine rifle not a wanna be sharing some attributes of the desired real rifle. But then everyone is different in their likes and dislikes and collector searches. I often hear the argument that the collector isn't looking for the value of something or the resale value of something. Why even collect in that case?

If I am gonna be completely honest with myself (as most collectors aren't) I want the biggest and best of them all!!!!!! Can't always do that but what the heck I'm gonna try to do that! Hahaha the game of life goes on. Good Luck! Bill

It appears that you have not checked back in or responded yet, but I hope that you will not have yielded to the temptation to attempt to refinish anything. Taking the time to understand where the rifles have been, the unique cold war history that put these into storage, and then later back out into the surplus market, and the fact that so many have already been ruined can go along ways in realizing the importance of leaving it original. You might say well it is ugly and could look so much better. Or it isn't original anyway if it has been refurbished. Realize that the refurb process before long term deep storage was just another step in it's historical significance. I would suggest to get a quick understanding of how preservation collectors feel about messed-with military firearms just Google search Mitchell's Mausers and see what is said about them and why.