A few days ago I finally broke down and bought a Spanish FR-8. It is built on a mauser receiver and bolt with a
17 3/4" barrel chambered in 7.62x51 NATO (good ol' .308). Big 5 had it on sale for $159. They had 3 of them they got from Century. All were in "good" condition according to the boxes. The one I picked had a BEAUTIFUL bore, but the stock was thrashed. I shot it the day I got it and it was holding 3" groups at 100 yards with iron sights on that little short barrel. I was satisfied with this gun so the restoration was started. Completely disassembled it and started degreasing/rust and blue removal/polishing, bent the handle down for future scope installation. The stock was so thrashed that the butt end had hardly any lacquer on it. After a thorough sanding to get to bare wood, I had never seen wood like this. The grain runs length-wise down the stock as usual. However, there are vertical stripes running through the wood from top to bottom. Very beautiful and likes like tiger or zebra stripes. Does anybody have any idea what type of wood the spaniards used on these rifles? My first thought was turning marks from a lathe, but I sanded it down far enough to remove them and they are also locaterd on the inside of the stock where a lathe wouldn't have been used.
17 3/4" barrel chambered in 7.62x51 NATO (good ol' .308). Big 5 had it on sale for $159. They had 3 of them they got from Century. All were in "good" condition according to the boxes. The one I picked had a BEAUTIFUL bore, but the stock was thrashed. I shot it the day I got it and it was holding 3" groups at 100 yards with iron sights on that little short barrel. I was satisfied with this gun so the restoration was started. Completely disassembled it and started degreasing/rust and blue removal/polishing, bent the handle down for future scope installation. The stock was so thrashed that the butt end had hardly any lacquer on it. After a thorough sanding to get to bare wood, I had never seen wood like this. The grain runs length-wise down the stock as usual. However, there are vertical stripes running through the wood from top to bottom. Very beautiful and likes like tiger or zebra stripes. Does anybody have any idea what type of wood the spaniards used on these rifles? My first thought was turning marks from a lathe, but I sanded it down far enough to remove them and they are also locaterd on the inside of the stock where a lathe wouldn't have been used.