This past week, I stripped down the stock of my KDF Voere Model 2005 (KDF being the U.S. based importer's name, Voere being the German manufacturer's name, 2005 being the model number). I picked this rifle up at the Hessney Auction back in October of last year. This is a photo of the rifle as it appeared in the online catalog for the auction:
It sure looked like a nice rifle, even though I do not necessarily like dark finishes like this one has on the wood. Yet, had I bid on it online, instead of being there in person to bid, I would have been furious if I had had the high bid on it. Because I was there in person, I realized that if you had taken a look at the other side of it - you would have seen this:
Not very nice and there was more of that further back on the stock. The reason I would have been furious, if I had wound up with the high bid via online bidding, is that the catalog only showed one photograph of it and as you saw above that picture was not of the damaged side. That is one of the reasons I normally do not bid online at the Hessney auctions. Mind you, I am not saying they are trying to screw anyone and my bet is they would have given a refund if they received a complaint from and online bidder or might have won it had I not had the high bid but what I am saying though is I do not like such surprises - no one does and they have a habitof often showing photos of only one side of a gun in their catalog. As I said though, because I was there in person, I saw it before bidding and I was still more than happy to bid on it. My thought then was I would refinish it.
Well, it took me until this week to get around to it. I spent about 2 days removing the finish and did that between other chores. I find I get more done if I do a little of this, do a little of that, get back to whatever I had been doing before getting to doing a little of that and then doing something else before getting back to a little of this. It breaks up the tedium. Yesterday, also between chores, I sanded it with three grades of sandpaper from medium to fine to extra fine and then went over it with three grades of steel wool. There were some dark lines that I had at first thought were old finish but they would not come off after several applications of very strong
stripper nor with even the medium grit sandpaper - so, I am fairly confident they were naturally occurring dark areas in the grain of the otherwise pretty light colored and beautifully grained wood.
I have no clue what type of wood it is from which the stock is made (would guess yellow pine but that's just a guess) but overall it has some spectacular grain. I think it was a sin for the manufacturer to have hidden it under the horrendous coat of varnish and dark stain that they used. Today, I changed that when I applied new stain to it. I rubbed in a coat of oil based Minwax finish, using their Cherry color. It came out pretty nice. After that dried, I applied a top coat of Formby's Tung Oil. I was wondering whether or not the can of it that I had in my basement would be any good. It's got a date on it and the year shown is 2001 (evidently the date of manufacture)! That is probably about right date-wise because it was about 15 years or so ago, by my best guestimate, that I refinished my Remington 870's stock with that same can of tung oil. As far as I can tell, that tung oil is as good as the day I purchased it. Right now, the stock is hanging to dry and this is what it looks like:
If I have to say it myself, I think it looks a lot better than it did before but I note it is not done yet. Later on tonight or maybe tomorrow (if it does not rain all day - I prefer doing this when not raining because it takes much longer to dry when the air is very humid), I plan to apply a second coat of the tung oil. I am guessing I will apply at least another two or three coats of it to make sure the stock has the protection it needs from the elements.
This 22 rimfire rifle is a bit unusual because it fires from an open bolt. It was unusual enough that the BATFE allegedly banned further importation of it some years ago because it fires from an open bolt. It's not banned from possession if it was imported prior to the importation ban - at least not yet. I am not too sure why they banned further importation of it but am guessing that they believe because it fires from an open bolt it would be easy to convert to full auto (and I have no real clue to that, just thinking along those lines because many sub machineguns fire from an open bolt). It is also unique, at least in my experience with rimfire rifles in that the firing pin is pretty much as wide as the back of a 22LR shell casing and thus it strikes from one side of the rim, through the center, all the way to the other side of the rim or in other words - right across the entire diameter of the shell casing.
When it is completely refinished and reassembled, I plan t take it to the range and have some fun with it. About the only thing I regret about this rifle is that I do not have a spare magazine for it and those supposedly available are damned expensive. I said supposedly available because the ones I have seen do not look much like the one that came with my rifle. I'll have to take good care of the one I have.
All the best,
Glenn B
It sure looked like a nice rifle, even though I do not necessarily like dark finishes like this one has on the wood. Yet, had I bid on it online, instead of being there in person to bid, I would have been furious if I had had the high bid on it. Because I was there in person, I realized that if you had taken a look at the other side of it - you would have seen this:
Not very nice and there was more of that further back on the stock. The reason I would have been furious, if I had wound up with the high bid via online bidding, is that the catalog only showed one photograph of it and as you saw above that picture was not of the damaged side. That is one of the reasons I normally do not bid online at the Hessney auctions. Mind you, I am not saying they are trying to screw anyone and my bet is they would have given a refund if they received a complaint from and online bidder or might have won it had I not had the high bid but what I am saying though is I do not like such surprises - no one does and they have a habitof often showing photos of only one side of a gun in their catalog. As I said though, because I was there in person, I saw it before bidding and I was still more than happy to bid on it. My thought then was I would refinish it.
Well, it took me until this week to get around to it. I spent about 2 days removing the finish and did that between other chores. I find I get more done if I do a little of this, do a little of that, get back to whatever I had been doing before getting to doing a little of that and then doing something else before getting back to a little of this. It breaks up the tedium. Yesterday, also between chores, I sanded it with three grades of sandpaper from medium to fine to extra fine and then went over it with three grades of steel wool. There were some dark lines that I had at first thought were old finish but they would not come off after several applications of very strong
stripper nor with even the medium grit sandpaper - so, I am fairly confident they were naturally occurring dark areas in the grain of the otherwise pretty light colored and beautifully grained wood.
I have no clue what type of wood it is from which the stock is made (would guess yellow pine but that's just a guess) but overall it has some spectacular grain. I think it was a sin for the manufacturer to have hidden it under the horrendous coat of varnish and dark stain that they used. Today, I changed that when I applied new stain to it. I rubbed in a coat of oil based Minwax finish, using their Cherry color. It came out pretty nice. After that dried, I applied a top coat of Formby's Tung Oil. I was wondering whether or not the can of it that I had in my basement would be any good. It's got a date on it and the year shown is 2001 (evidently the date of manufacture)! That is probably about right date-wise because it was about 15 years or so ago, by my best guestimate, that I refinished my Remington 870's stock with that same can of tung oil. As far as I can tell, that tung oil is as good as the day I purchased it. Right now, the stock is hanging to dry and this is what it looks like:
 |
| I think that is much improved but that is just my taste. |
 |
This 22 rimfire rifle is a bit unusual because it fires from an open bolt. It was unusual enough that the BATFE allegedly banned further importation of it some years ago because it fires from an open bolt. It's not banned from possession if it was imported prior to the importation ban - at least not yet. I am not too sure why they banned further importation of it but am guessing that they believe because it fires from an open bolt it would be easy to convert to full auto (and I have no real clue to that, just thinking along those lines because many sub machineguns fire from an open bolt). It is also unique, at least in my experience with rimfire rifles in that the firing pin is pretty much as wide as the back of a 22LR shell casing and thus it strikes from one side of the rim, through the center, all the way to the other side of the rim or in other words - right across the entire diameter of the shell casing.
When it is completely refinished and reassembled, I plan t take it to the range and have some fun with it. About the only thing I regret about this rifle is that I do not have a spare magazine for it and those supposedly available are damned expensive. I said supposedly available because the ones I have seen do not look much like the one that came with my rifle. I'll have to take good care of the one I have.
All the best,
Glenn B
