Thanks
I wish I could find where I posted the full pic of the rifle, but I can't find it right now.
The 1952 receiver stamped Hungarian M-44 featured above has mostly matching serial numbers, except for the bolt face, firing pin, magazine spring and follower, and of course, the stock. With exception of the stock, I am the one who switched those parts for more serviceable ones. The bayonet lug has been removed and the surface polished down. The rear sight leaf has been removed and a B-Square rail installed in it's place. A rail originally designed to go on top of a Ruger 10/22 has been affixed to the forward end of the stock in such a manner as to attach a light or a bipod.
The stock bore armory markings from three different nations (Poland, Bulgaria, and Hungary), and was quite marred and abused. It even had a crack that would have eventually left the stock unserviceable if someone continued to fire the weapon without repairing it. I started by sanding it with a fairly coarse grain sand paper, followed by chemical stripping to remove the original tongue oil stain. After neutralizing the stripper, washing it, and allowing it to dry, I sanded it again. At this point, I filled in the crack and sanded that down. Then I applied two liberal coats of an oil-based dark ebony stain to it, and let it dry completely before lightly and slowly sanding it with a fine grain sand paper. Finally, I applied two coats of matte finish spar urathane (designed for outdoor wooden furniture), allowing it to fully dry and light super-fine sanding after each.
Now, the question I know I'm going to get: Why go to all the trouble to do this to a
M-44? The answers are easy: 1) To test myself and see if I could refinish it, 2) To test the process to see if it would work and, if so, then how well, 3) Because I felt like it, 4) Because if it didn't work, then I wouldn't be wasting anything that wasn't already going to get wasted anyways. However, I was very satisfied with the results, and it's a must-pack whenever I go to the mountains of NC as an in-case-of-bear rifle. Is it a tack driver? Hell no. Will a heavy ball, steel core 7.62x54R round penetrate a bear (or for that matter, any other animal) skull at close range? I'll be surprised and probably dead if it doesn't. Not that I would hunt with ball ammo, but in a defensive situation, I prefer a CNS kill, and HP or SP may not get the job done on an animal with a skull that thick.