bnz 45 minor restoration

Got this recently. Stock and metal covered with some light varnish, most wiped off with paint thinner. Still have a lot of gentle cleaning to do. All parts present and matching except for a few inches of end of stock, end plate and screw, and screw for end band. I think most are reproduced and have been listed on forum. Any help?

stephen said:

Got this recently. Stock and metal covered with some light varnish, most wiped off with paint thinner. Still have a lot of gentle cleaning to do. All parts present and matching except for a few inches of end of stock, end plate and screw, and screw for end band. I think most are reproduced and have been listed on forum. Any help?

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Nice pickup.
There is a forum member here who does this type of work on the regular, I'm sure he'll respond.

Scrub walnut might be a challenge.

That looks like a nice rifle! It’s a walnut stock so as was already said finding a suitable stock section is going to be difficult. The other parts are definitely doable though. You have a pretty late gun there, thank you for sharing it!!


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Ok, as the replacement piece of wood will be straight without any slots or hole’s, were there any walnut stocks used on other misusers type rifles with the same wood profile, South American, Czech, etc.

Thanks

Stephen

Hello there, I’ve fixed several stocks like this and make all the other parts that you need. The issue isn’t the repair section itself, but rather what these gentleman are getting at is the specific type of walnut that you need. Collectors call these late walnut stocks “scrub walnut” just generically referring to a lower blank grade and often of much lower density, I think this is especially true of Steyr rifles. Many turn up with factory repairs typically above the bolt cutout where the stock is fragile, and many show heavy stock contouring in the grip area leaving an exposed receiver tang, I firmly believe this area is often sanded off to remove what was likely tear out and chips from the inletting process on such a soft piece of walnut. If a junk “scrub walnut” stock could be located a forend could be built for this stock, I happen to need a small repair piece for a late Steyr of my own. Nice looking Bnz and a worthwhile project

Metal cleaned up nice

What did you use?

Cleaned the varnish off the metal with some solvent and a tooth brush. Then wiped it down with oil

stephen said:

Cleaned the varnish off the metal with some solvent and a tooth brush. Then wiped it down with oil

Click to expand...

Looks good, how many inches of stock extend beyond the lower band. Do you have another KM stock to compare. Looks like they cut it right at the upper band. You may be able to hide the seam under the upper band/ shadow line.

I had hoped to do that but about a half inch to short to hide under band

After cleaning stock and metal. Did not apply anything to stock after cleaning varnish off. Patina on barrel shows it’s been like this for a long time

To hide that dufflecut Id cut the stock back to behind the rear band. I would try Leszek fox in Poland. He might be able to make you a donor section of wood. He made me an entire front end of a white glue kriegsmodell stock from 4" behind the rear band to the tip and he does excellent work. He leaves it slightly oversized so you'll of course have to to hand finish, etc.

http://fox-military.com/en/