Tuesday, January 28, 2020

The Zombie Killer Transformed - Just Look At It Now

Remember this:



That atrocity was/is my Mosin Nagant with turned down bolt, the one I decided to paint as a goof for a zombie apocalypse charge at a bloggershoot in New Hampshire some years back. Then, after getting it painted, I think I never used it in the charge, heck I may not have even made it to the bloggershoot but don't quote me on that.

That was back when you could still get a Mosin Nagant 91/30 for about $99.99 fairly in decent condition, so I figured what the heck - they're cheap. Having a turned down bolt, this one was somewhat more expensive, around $150 if I remember right but still I figured what the heck - they're cheap (am I repeating myself). Well, lately I've been to gun shows where I have seen Mosin Nagants of the absolutely nothing special variety, but in decent condition, selling for over $400.00! I've also seen some pretty beat up ones, even with cracked stocks, with asking prices between $300 to $350. I decided to sell the Zombie Killer at a gun show over around Dallas not all that long ago. No takers, mostly I guess because of the color even though I was only asking less than the dealers and would have taken $200 to $225. Oh well.

Anyway, I decided to strip the wood and painted metal parts and refinish the wood. That's exactly what I have been doing over the last few days to a week. Here is what it looks like now (sorry for the crappy pics, poor lighting, I'll try to remember to get better ones to repost here):





I think it came out as passable. I wish I would have matched the color of the original 91/30 wood finish but this will do nicely as far as I am concerned. Note that the paint stripper did not affect the metal except to remove the paint and that was a relief because I had no clue if it would take off the bluing. Still though, some of the metal needed some touch-up and I experimented with Birchwood Casey Perma Blue cold bluing solution. Wow, it did the job perfectly on the few spots where I used it, blended right in. It's not like I wire brushed off any rust, I left that in place and just covered some scratches and such, that stuff worked really well.

So, it now looks presentable, even saleable. The thing is now that I got it looking pretty nice again, I am thinking of keeping it. If I do go to another gun show over in Dallas, I may have to bring it along even if I don't intend selling it. That would be just to show it to the one dealer who laughed at it and me and who said he would not buy it because I probably painted it to cover a crack in the stock. The stock has some small dings but definitely no cracks. The only thing about it that may have been cracked was me for painting it up as the Zombie Killer in the first place.

All the best,
Glenn B

1 comment:

Glen Filthie said...

Great job, Glenn!

I think you might want to hang on to it from a financial perspective, milsurps in good condition are fetching prices that make your nose bleed.