How to remove the Black, gunky finish on a VZ 52 Rifle

R

Rome

New member
I've got the opportunity to add a VZ52 rifle to my collection at a pretty reasonable price. (ammo is finally resurfacing here and there, too.) The problem is that it has this thick, black, gunky finish applied to the stock. If you know the answers to these questions, I'd appreciate a post.

1) Have you ever removed this finish and what did you use?
2) What was the stock underneath like and what species of wood was it?
3) Why the heck were these painted in the first place?

I've seen and read that a number of these rifles had the stocks painted with this gunk but can't, for the life of me, figure out why.

Any info will be appreciated.

Rome
 
The icky black crinkle paint was used by the importers to hide less-than pretty, or even cracked, wood underneath. The guns, when in service, were finished wood, not the paint. I think the importers were capitalizing on the "Black rifle" allure when they painted them, too. After cleaning off the paint, some of the folks visiting my VZ-52 rifle page have reported that their rifles actually had good looking, but dinged and scuffed, wood underneath, which cleaned up no sweat. I've heard of folks using acetone, Formby's finish remover, and a few commercial paint strippers, like EZ-Strip, to get that stuff off their guns. As for the species of wood, my examples are some sort of orange-ish and soft straight-grained stuff, maybe a Czech variant of birch?

View
 
Hey!!!

How come I didn't recognize that Username? Did you finally buy that VZ-52, Rome? I knew you contacted a certain somebody about the ammo, but I hadn't heard back from you on whether you took the plunge and bought the rifle...
 
Hi there

Well, I went to the shop after finding the ammo and lo and behold, the rifle I was after was gone and sitting in it's place was this hunk of gunk. I was really disappointed. The original VZ52, which looked really nice, had been sitting there for about 4 months. I'd been looking at a bunch of other rifles but this one kept calling to me. I figured that if it was still there after all this time, it wanted to come home with me. But, I had to make sure that I could feed it properly. Anyway, as I mentioned first, a guy had walked in, traded his junker VZ and some bucks for the nice one. I've checked his out and figure that it's salvagable but his asking price was twice what I'd pay for it. So, I put an offer out there and will know early this coming week if he'll take it. As long as the mechanics of the rifle work ok, I'll be happy.

I'll keep you informed.

Thanks for the info. Email me sometime.

R
 
Nope, mine has the original metal buttcap that snaps over the inner metal buttcap. Some of the more recent VZ-52's on the market also have a one-piece wooden handguard, vs. the metal handguard with wooden insert. Something to look out for, there was a reason they went with the metal handguard, it's where the gas system vents the excess pressure...
 
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