After I got home from Penn State, I had a little time on my hands, and a particularly ugly finish on my newly acquired m44. So having nothing better to do, I decided to strip off the Soviet issue shellac and refinish it. All told I put about 10 hours of work into this stock, but the vast majority of the process was waiting, which took about a week for everything to settle in.

This is how the rifle looked before the process started.

Yeah, pretty crappy, I know.

So I went out and found this excellent guide to refinishing milsurp rifles, and followed it to the letter.

Here’s my stock in the “driftwood” phase.

And finally, all finished.

I really like the way it came out. It even feels nicer. And, best of all, gave me something to do for a few days.