Most new AK-47s come from the factory with unfinished wood. This fits the down-and-dirty appeal of this classic rifle; however, the bare wood isn’t aesthetically pleasing and it also tends to get grimy over time.
If you’re dragging your rifle through the mud in a third-world hellhole, this isn’t a big deal. It’s not really a big deal at all, unless you want the rifle to look nice.
I wanted my rifle to look nice, so I decided to go ahead and finish the furniture. You could pay someone to do this – but why? If you can finger paint, you can finish wood. There’s nothing to it.
Here’s the entire rifle before I started:
And here’s the stock from one side:
And the other:
And the grip from one side:
And the other:
The first thing I needed to do in order to finish the wood was to remove the furniture from the rifle. The front pieces are tricky unless you’ve done it before. I hadn’t gone further than field-stripping and oiling the rifle, so I looked to YouTube and found an excellent video on removing the wood pieces from the AK-47:
After watching parts of that clip, then pausing and going back a couple of times, I was able to remove the wood without mishap. The hardest part is twisting off the top piece of the grip. Some have said that there’s a risk of cracking the wood, however mine did fine. Just a bit tight.
Once I had the pieces removed, I sanded them with 400 grit sandpaper (they were already smooth) and took another picture:
Then came the fun part – staining and finishing!
There are quite a few ways you can go about finishing the wood on an AK-47. A friend recommended ammonia and tobacco juice as a “traditional” stain. I looked that up and decided against it.
I could also have simply used multiple coats of linseed or tung oil, then polished it up. Or I could have gone with an all-in-one wipe on stain/finish.
Instead, I decided to just go with Urethane Spar Varnish.
Rather than using a dark stain, I decided to keep the wood light. I used Minwax Ipswitch Pine stain, which gave it a little “pop.” I applied that a few times, wiping it off after five minutes each time, then let it dry for a while.
After staining, it was time to add a finish coat. I chose Minwax Helmsman Spar Urethane, a very tough varnish used for marine finishes.
Since the stock was impossible to finish on a surface since there’s no way to balance it, I took an old wire clothes hanger, twisted into a loop, then hooked one end into one of the mounting screw holes and hung the stock from a bar on my back porch for ease of varnish application.
It’s important to use a good brush when applying varnish. Cheap bristles make for lousy finishes. If you’re going cheap, use a small disposable foam brush. If you have more money, use a fine artist’s brush or a good finish brush from your local paint store.
Doing a proper job with urethane takes some time. I had a sunny dry day so it took about 4 hours for the first coat to dry enough that I could sand and re-coat. I did this three times before I was happy with the finish, then let the pieces dry.
After they felt good and dry, I reassembled the rifle. Here’s what it looks like now:
Finished stock:
And another shot of the finished stock:
And the grip:
If I had to do it again, I’d probably go with a little deeper finish color, but I’m still quite happy with the results. The rifle feels complete. Finishing the wood on an AK-47 might not be necessary, but it’s certainly satisfying. There’s nothing like a nice finish.
Now I just need to take it out the range and see how it shoots. Ah, priorities…
