The out of the box experience:
Note that the front sight blade is broken off (below). I didn't notice this until after cleaning as I was too busy admiring the flaming bomb.
Weak FJA and RA cartouches are visible:
Circle P and serial number stamps. This stock does not match the receiver serial number:
Serial number on the barral and receiver appear to match. Not much else on this rifle does.
Cosmoline was absolutely everywhere.
After cleaning. The bolt and small parts off stock were disassembled and sonicated in hexane/acetone.
The barrel and receiver were cleaned by pouring boiling water over them. This was amazingly fast and effective. After everything was clean it was rubbed down with an oily rag.
Front sight damage. On the right image you can see the small pin that needs to be driven out in order to remove the front sight blade. I did this with a 1/16" punch. It required hitting pretty hard with a hammer to get the pin out. Once the pin was out the blade was still jammed in very tight. I ended up using a flat blade srewdriver and hammer to dislodge the blade. Upon inspection it looked as if the blade had been "glued" in place with cosmoline.
Reassembled. The stock was cleaned with mineral spirits two or three times. I was never very happy with the removal of cosmoline from the stock as there were a number of crevesses that I could never get clean. Nevertheless, I ended up putting two coats of tung oil and I think it looks pretty good. Since the stock is clearly not original with this gun I wasn't too concerned about getting it perfect.
Here you can see the magazine cut off switch being moved from on to off. In the off position, bullets will not feed from the magazine and must be loaded one at a time.
Here you can see the safety going from ready to safe. In safe mode pulling the trigger does not release the striker. Nor can you pull the bolt back to open the chamber.
Also in these pictures you can see that the bolt was marked for a receiver number. This number does not match the receiver or the stock.
Here you can get an idea of what sighting the gun will look like (note front sight blade is repaired). The single thin blade will be hard to get used to after the nice sights on the Garand.
Muzzle wear was gauged at just a hair over 1. Bore is shiny with sharp rifling. I haven't had a chance to shoot it, but I expect it will be nice.
Here is the final product sporting a reproduction leather 1907 sling.
