The Rifle In It's Original Form

I recently obtained a classic Mosin Nagant 91/30 on a trade. Chambered in 7.62x54r the rifle is known to be a great shooter with some specimens showing great accuracy. They can be picked up at almost any sporting goods store for around 100 bucks. Mine is a re-arsenaled version so the receiver is newer and not as nice looking as the original as well as the stock being not very high quality. All these factors lead me to decide to give the stock a new paint job!

The first step is to dissemble your weapon unless you want to paint the exposed metal as well. I took mine apart leaving me with just the stock and barrel shield. You can use any type of flat or ultra flat spray paint. I have heard Krylon is the best, for this job I used Rustoleum’s camouflage paint. Once you have your weapon broken down you will want to sand the parts with sandpaper so that the spray paint will adhere better. Once that is done wipe the stock down removing all the dust. You may also want to wipe the stock down with Acetone or Mineral Spirits to remove any oil or grease that the stock may have in it.

Once this is all down you are ready for step two, the base coat, when camouflaging you want to start with your lightest color and work toward your darkest color. In our case that is the color tan. You give the stock a good coating of tan.

The Stock After a Second Base Coat of Paint

This may take several coats. You want to make sure that the stock is completely covered so that none of the original color is showing through. Your weapon should look something like this at this point.

After allowing the base coat to dry you are on to the third step. You are going to need some stencil material. I prefer to use natural material like long grasses or pine branches, you can use a stencil cut in paper or what ever you like, it is up to you. Here is the material that I used, just some grasses that I pulled from a field.

The Stencil Material

Make sure it is dry, then lay it across your gunstock and spray your next color over the stock. I used olive drab as my next lightest color. The grass you laid across the stock will create shadows and depth where the paint sprays through the grass.

Adding The Stencil Layer

Once the paint is dry reposition the grass, maybe add a bit more grass depending on how much paint you want to spray through, then paint your next darkest color. I used brown for my next color.

After Several Layers of Shadows

You can vary the paint you use and add more colors depending the effect you want on your stock. You can use darker colors but they do not usually blend in as well as light colors. I had black but I did not add it to mine. I just used a three color paint scheme. On smaller objects like a stock the 3 color works well, any more colors and they start to all blend together and cover each other up. You can do this with any colors you want. To practice I used red, white and blue spray paint. I would suggest practicing on a piece of cardboard or scrap piece before venturing out and painting something you actually want.

Here’s the finished product from my efforts.

The Finished Product

Before

After

I hope that this tutorial will help everyone.

Rocket