ParrotHead wrote:

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I have a '39 ERMA and it looks very similar to what yours did. What did you do exactly to clean it up? I don't want to strip it, but just clean the stock nice.

Hi ParrotHead and welcome to Parallax Bill's German Military Mausers forum! We here are dedicated to preserving these weapons in as near to original condition as we can. For most of these, that is best described as "not as new," most of the weapons we collect had a long and active service life. Rather, call it "as the weapon appeared when it was turned in by the soldier for the last time." That means clean and the stocks dressed in whatever finish their service provided for stock maintenennce. That description comes from another of our moderators, Cabinetman.

The RC, "Russian Capture" prevents a different challenge and an individual determination. The RC98 is neither one nor the other. The last soldier to turn in these weapons either did so from a lifeless hand or by passing in a line and throwing it on a pile in the filth of battlefied and defeat. It's captors cared not for it beyond the fact it might serve them in final extremis shouold their own prove insufficient to the task. That never came to pass so now they are merely a source of revenue to the decendants of those who took them from their one time owners.

Now the question... To attempt to 'restore' it to some semblance of a Wehrmacht K98k? Or to preserve it as a Soviet fall back weapon created from the German 98k? There is enough disparity of division that there is not one largely accepted answer.

The RC Mauser is frequently found slathered in thick coatings of preservative shellac in varying degrees of condition. One answer is to clean the serface dirt and leave it as is. This is the truest path of preservation.

Another is to smooth the shellac into a level surface, spray on a final coat of shellac which will merge with the under coats making one smoother, and not flaking coat that covers all. The new shellac shine can be dulled somewhat by rubbing it out with 0000 steel wool and oil.

The extreme opposite direction is to strip the weapon and refinish it with oil. Normally we do not tolerate discussion of such 'restoration" techniques here.

Mine was easier to deal with. I don't know that it had shellac or if so, it was fair rubbed from the surface leaving only the subsurface layer. I cleaned the stock with mineral spirits, which, for the record, does not remove shellac. It removed a fair amount of crud and dried cosmoline. I believe the surface glaze seen in the before pics was just that. A glaze of hardened dry cosmoline. Removing it didn't signifacantly lighten the stock. I then rubbed in only two coats of oil. That was all it took. Whether that is a result of a subsurface layer of shellac, or a by-product of the laminate stock, (this is the first I've had) I cannot say.