The Voere Stock Is Finally Refinished

As I posted on May 5th here, I started to strip the stock of my Voere 22 rifle on or about May 2nd. It took two days to get off as much of the old finish as I could remove. On the third day I sanded it to glassy smoothness. Then on the fourth day, I stained it and applied the first coat of Formby's Tung Oil. Since then I have applied 5 more coats of Tung Oil - only one oat per day because they recommend waiting 12 hours before applying the next coat. I think it came out pretty nice and is a big improvement over what it originally looked like.

Here is how it looked when I got it:

Looks pretty nice but looks can be deceiving especially
when you get to see only one side of any given thing.

Flipping to the other side of the coin, so to speak, gave you this ghastly view.

I bought it at auction and did not mind that it had the finish damage.  I figured that the stock was plain and uncheckered so refinishing it would be easy. The metal finish was and remains in virtually pristine condition. What really was the attraction to me of this rifle was that I was almost certain it fired from an open bolt; turned out I was right. That apparently is also an attraction to many others who would likely be willing to pay quite a bit more for it than what I bid on it. Not selling it though, at least not right now, especially now that it looks as nice as it does today.

Here is what the stock looked like this evening, after it had about 6 coats of Formby's Tung Oil over the MinWax cherry stain I applied.

It may actually be a little lighter than that but not by much. The slightly
bluish-gray highlighted areas on the stock are the reflection of the evening sky.

Tonight, I put it back together. Praise the guys and gals on Mt. Olympus - none of them played any tricks on me by hiding any of the parts; although, the Ziploc bag they were in somehow got a hole in it! This is what it looks like put back together.

I wish I had better indoor lighting for these shots but this was the best I could
do with what I have available. The shots of just the stock were taken outside.

Now, while it may not be a professional quality job, I think I did pretty good for an amateur. I need to get it to the range, the next time the Long Island Gun Club meets, to show it off and to shoot it some more. In between now and then, and afterwards, it is going into a gun sock to help assure it does not get scratched.

By the way, I had thought this was a Voere Model 2005 but am not so sure now. It is my understanding that the model 2005 was so marked with that model number. This one does not show 2005 nor any model number anywhere that I have found. Yet, it certainly looks exactly like the Model 2005s I have seen in photographs. Not many of them were imported into this country before importation of them was banned by ATF because they fired from an open bolt; they were, to the best of my knowledge only imported in 1986. Supposedly, almost all of those imported were converted to full auto before the 1986 ban on newly manufactured and or converted full auto guns. I have read that: it has been estimated only about 300-500 of them, in unconverted semi-automatic condition, are thought to exist. This could be one of them! It was a nice find with very little interest at the auction and I got it for a pretty low bid; I have seen NEF Pardner shotguns sell for more. Am I a happy firearms aficionado - who owns a Voere - yes I  most certainly am.

All the best,
Glenn B