Author Topic: M59, Nice Wood  (Read 11900 times)

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Offline Phosphorus32

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M59, Nice Wood
« on: February 04, 2018, 07:03:12 PM »
Picked this refurbed M59 off the rack at the LGS last week, and it was love at first sight.

The Yugoslavians used elm, walnut, oak, etc. on their Mausers, and this is obviously a relatively early SKS, so I'm not surprised that stock making blanks other than elm were occasionally used. I believe it's walnut that's been flat sawn from a sizable log, notice the cathedral grain pattern, and the grain can be seen running straight along the bottom of the stock with rings that are over 1/4 inch wide, healthy tree. It could be some other hardwood I'm not familiar with that has grain similar to walnut, regardless, it sure isn't your typical elm. I think I might propose to this Serbian beauty :o  rofl











































Offline Loose}{Cannon

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Re: M59, Nice Wood
« Reply #1 on: February 04, 2018, 07:07:18 PM »
Whoa....  You found a Teak stock!!!!    :o
      
1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms... It doesn't matter how many Lenins you get out on the street begging for them to be taken.

Offline Phosphorus32

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Re: M59, Nice Wood
« Reply #2 on: February 04, 2018, 07:41:24 PM »
Whoa....  You found a Teak stock!!!!    :o

fart1 rofl

Offline Greasemonkey

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Re: M59, Nice Wood
« Reply #3 on: February 04, 2018, 08:48:15 PM »
Whoa!!

He went there....     He really went down that path.

I mean... Teak... Uhm really..  I could see maybe artic mahogany maybe... Maybe eastern European coconut.... But teak.. nea1 we have had that discussion 498,732 times

I'll help you out P32... Send that to me.. I will study that fine specimen and let you know at some point..after I have my way with it..

Seriously..it looks alot like my dark wood M59.. can I have it??
I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse......

Leave the gun, take the cannoli.

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Offline Phosphorus32

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Re: M59, Nice Wood
« Reply #4 on: February 04, 2018, 10:35:03 PM »
Seriously..it looks alot like my dark wood M59.. can I have it??

The stock is in the mail  thumb1  chuckles1

Offline Loose}{Cannon

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Re: M59, Nice Wood
« Reply #5 on: February 04, 2018, 10:38:02 PM »
Nice get  thumb1
      
1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms... It doesn't matter how many Lenins you get out on the street begging for them to be taken.

Offline Phosphorus32

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Re: M59, Nice Wood
« Reply #6 on: February 04, 2018, 10:39:49 PM »
A few more pics.

The grain visible on the bottom of the stock shows clearly that the log was flatsawn.





Tiger striping is pronounced on the top of the wood, hidden by the handguard and a hint of it elsewhere.




Offline Phosphorus32

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Re: M59, Nice Wood
« Reply #7 on: February 04, 2018, 10:40:13 PM »

Offline firstchoice

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Re: M59, Nice Wood
« Reply #8 on: February 05, 2018, 05:43:40 AM »
I like the wood that your stock was made from, whatever that would be! My "C" series M59 refurb is C-38861, so 2,750 rifles later than yours. The wood that my stock is made from looks a lot different than yours. Not sure if that means anything. Some of these stocks would be great looking if we could refinish them to their original glory. But not going to do it, though.  :)







The M59/66A1's that I have don't seem to have the more interesting wood like these M59's. How many types of wood did the Yugoslav rifles get fitted with?

Very nice acquisition Phos! My local gun shops just don't have anything in the way of SKS, or milsurp, in general. I keep looking though.

firstchoice

Offline Justin Hell

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Re: M59, Nice Wood
« Reply #9 on: February 05, 2018, 07:20:22 AM »
I like the wood that your stock was made from, whatever that would be! My "C" series M59 refurb is C-38861, so 2,750 rifles later than yours. The wood that my stock is made from looks a lot different than yours. Not sure if that means anything. Some of these stocks would be great looking if we could refinish them to their original glory. But not going to do it, though.  :)







The M59/66A1's that I have don't seem to have the more interesting wood like these M59's. How many types of wood did the Yugoslav rifles get fitted with?

Very nice acquisition Phos! My local gun shops just don't have anything in the way of SKS, or milsurp, in general. I keep looking though.

firstchoice

Mine is about 3000 after yours, and seems to be the same type of wood, sawn the same way. Mine appears to have an amber shellac vs the garnet yours appears to sport though...and much less of it left.

It seems as if they took a different approach to every tree they encountered maximizing board feet in ways that created some very neat grain patterns. Unfortunately, it seems by luck of the grain, some seem more prone to cracking than other nationalities tend to. I haven't seen one cut quite like Pho's beauty here.

I just feel lucky to have one, local shops are not milsurp rich. Mine sat for nearly two years after I had seen it before I could pick it up. I must be fortunate to live in a SKS collector area that is not highly populated. I still haven't been able to bring myself to clean the cosmoline out of it yet.  I just look at her...all sloppy.  I am sure I will soon though...she deserves it.

Beautiful acquisition there Phos32. Let me know if you need a proper cleaning kit for it...I have a couple spare Yugo kits.

Offline CARBINE

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Re: M59, Nice Wood
« Reply #10 on: February 05, 2018, 09:59:38 AM »
Beautiful gun man!!
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Offline Phosphorus32

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Re: M59, Nice Wood
« Reply #11 on: February 05, 2018, 12:37:33 PM »

Offline Phosphorus32

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Re: M59, Nice Wood
« Reply #12 on: February 05, 2018, 01:07:55 PM »
I like the wood that your stock was made from, whatever that would be! My "C" series M59 refurb is C-38861, so 2,750 rifles later than yours. The wood that my stock is made from looks a lot different than yours. Not sure if that means anything. Some of these stocks would be great looking if we could refinish them to their original glory. But not going to do it, though.  :)







The M59/66A1's that I have don't seem to have the more interesting wood like these M59's. How many types of wood did the Yugoslav rifles get fitted with?

Very nice acquisition Phos! My local gun shops just don't have anything in the way of SKS, or milsurp, in general. I keep looking though.

firstchoice

Thanks for posting pictures of yours.

I think yours may be the same type of wood. It's likely just from a different part of the log. The use of the flatsawn technique is the most efficient use of the log, and I'm sure efficient use of scarce resources was the main interest of 1950's to 1960's Yugoslavia. My stock came from a cut at the edge of the log but the angle of the grain will increase from nearly 0 degrees all the way to 90 degrees and then back to nearly 0 degrees as they slice boards off of the log, so this creates a lot of different grain patterns. I think the wood looks a lot like walnut to me in some characteristics, but not in others, so I'm not certain what type of wood it is. The Yugoslavians definitely used walnut earlier on their Mausers, especially the pre-WWII Mausers, but like everywhere else in Europe, Juglans regia, aka English walnut, became harder to come by as the continent lurched into and through WWII.

Perhaps they all are elm stocks and they were just finished differently earlier in production. The wood is darker and the surface is a lot smoother on these stocks than on the typical reddish-blonde elm stocks that I've seen used before and after these C-block examples, so I lean strongly toward it being a different wood than elm.

Yeah, slim pickings here too. I don't see many SKSs in my LGS, and when I do see them, they have often been poorly treated (e.g., there's a bubba'd Chinese in a Russian stock with a mag well chiseled by a dull-toothed beaver and a 20 round mag sitting there now). My other M59s, LBs or standard, were all acquired from Dan's, as this is the first M59 I've ever seen locally.

Offline Phosphorus32

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Re: M59, Nice Wood
« Reply #13 on: February 05, 2018, 01:15:18 PM »
Mine is about 3000 after yours, and seems to be the same type of wood, sawn the same way. Mine appears to have an amber shellac vs the garnet yours appears to sport though...and much less of it left.

It seems as if they took a different approach to every tree they encountered maximizing board feet in ways that created some very neat grain patterns. Unfortunately, it seems by luck of the grain, some seem more prone to cracking than other nationalities tend to. I haven't seen one cut quite like Pho's beauty here.

I just feel lucky to have one, local shops are not milsurp rich. Mine sat for nearly two years after I had seen it before I could pick it up. I must be fortunate to live in a SKS collector area that is not highly populated. I still haven't been able to bring myself to clean the cosmoline out of it yet.  I just look at her...all sloppy.  I am sure I will soon though...she deserves it.

Beautiful acquisition there Phos32. Let me know if you need a proper cleaning kit for it...I have a couple spare Yugo kits.

I don't think mine is shellacked. It doesn't have the look or feel of shellac. I agree that they probably focused on maximizing board feet. More on that in my response to FC's post.

Hey thanks for the offer. I was fortunate that this one came with a cleaning kit in the stock.

That's amazing that an SKS sat in a shop for 2 years! I generally stop in at my LGS weekly just to see if they've received any new consignment or traded milsurps  :))

Offline carls sks

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Re: M59, Nice Wood
« Reply #14 on: February 05, 2018, 02:58:20 PM »
got to get out more to my LGS, nice one.  thumb1
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Offline Greasemonkey

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Re: M59, Nice Wood
« Reply #15 on: February 05, 2018, 03:09:41 PM »
P32... when I went through the whole "teak" mess.. I found there are at 3 very common species of elm in that area.. all have slightly different characteristics. There were mention of others, I guess sub variants, hybrids and other species exist in Serbia/general area, but these 3 seemed to be the most common and wide spread. One other note I had was... given the size and girth of some trees, the heart wood, which was typically darker and reddish in color was used for certain uses, while the lighter colored outer wood was sawn away and used in other items.

The most common ones I found were..
1. Field Elm... or English Elm...Ulmus minor Atinia this seemed to be the most common spoke of elm tree.. but Dutch elm disease really hurt the population, this was an on going disease during Titos reign of power... also this is called Carpathian Elm when in burl form
2. Wych Elm... or Scotch Elm.... Ulmus glabra.. this was another that suffered through the Dutch elm disease, although not as heavily devastated, also a fairly common choice for woodworking.
3. European white elm... or Fluttering Elm.. Ulmus laevis.... here in the US, they call it Russian Elm.. this one is deemed a pretty much useless tree for wood working use... not even really favored for something as simple as firewood. Just used mainly for shade or for it's looks.

These dark different stocks also don't seem quite as common as the lighter stocks on the M59. I have wondered if they were not mostly replaced as time and refurbs happened. My stock is in almost the same serial range, the late 30k range...the rifle is no where close..it's an earlier "C" in the 24k range.




The same M59 has the later style hand guard wood.. gives a cool contrast between the types of wood.


I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse......

Leave the gun, take the cannoli.

I said I was an addict........I didn't say I had a problem

Offline Loose}{Cannon

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Re: M59, Nice Wood
« Reply #16 on: February 05, 2018, 03:52:31 PM »
Me thinks this simply depends on the way in which the log is cut.  I can make a reference picture and explain further if that would help.
      
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Offline running-man

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Re: M59, Nice Wood
« Reply #17 on: February 05, 2018, 04:57:23 PM »
I've always been of the opinion that the early Yugos and late Yugos had different wood types.  I guess they could just be sawn differently, but look at this stock from my M59.  Looks more similar to FC's than it does to P32s or GMs.   

Lots of white between the grain:


Looking at a right angle to the sides around the TG, the grain is pretty wavy but still quite distinct in the light vs dark areas.  Maybe this is also present on the darker finished guns but just not as apparent?
      

Offline Phosphorus32

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Re: M59, Nice Wood
« Reply #18 on: February 05, 2018, 05:12:42 PM »
Thanks GM. Yes, it could be a different species, or variety (genetically isolated sub-population) of Elm.

The grain exhibited is dependent on so many things. The species, sub-population of the tree, even within a small region. The climate, drought, wind (stress wood), elevation, etc. The cut as mentioned by many now, as well as whether it is sapwood or heartwood.

Finally, the finish is very different on these. Much smoother than the typical Yugoslavian stock, and that may have brought out subtle visual variations in the wood. It could be as specific as the lumber for these M59 stocks in the 30K serial range came from a harvest of a particular lot of trees.

I agree RM, the Protokol M59/66A1s definitely had a different lumber selection if not different wood. Very fine grain without a lot of figuring. Chosen for uniformity of appearance I gather.

DNA analysis would be the most definitive (a bit trickier with wood than other biological tissues that have a high proportion of living cells), but end-grain analysis by an expert botanist or forester would probably be almost as good. Same issue as the early vs. later Chinese Type 56 stocks.

Regardless, it's purdy  chuckles1

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Re: M59, Nice Wood
« Reply #19 on: February 05, 2018, 05:38:22 PM »


The difference in grain between the 2 styles..



I can say the Mausers are different... M24/47



This one has the elm hand guard, like my M59.....and a lot of ugly, but I can not say for certain the stock is elm.. M48B


My M48A is fairly close to the SKS as I have...but too many differences to claim its the same..biggest thing is, elm doesn't usually tiger stripe. This may be the walnut P32 spoke of.



My M48BO looks about the closest to RM's M59 stock in my opinion  :o  This is plausible...due to this being the last of Yugoslavia's Mauser production...ending in 1965.





I have no clue... really... I'm not a woodologist. But they is purdy  thumb1
I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse......

Leave the gun, take the cannoli.

I said I was an addict........I didn't say I had a problem