Help identifying wood on these handguards

[DenverGP]

I picked up a nice korea era birch Garand stock from an Ar-15.co member, and I'm trying to find some handguards to go with it.

I found these... the front handguard looks like birch to me, but the rear one (bottom in the pics) I can't really tell.






They are lighter than I really want, as the stock is a really nice dark birch, but I figured I could try to darken them up a little to be a closer match, but want to be sure I'm working with birch all the way around.

[ray1970]

Obviously hard tell from pictures on the internet but they both look like birch to me.

[10x]

Agree, both look like birch. Over the years I've seen many birch stocks in that color.

[zteknik]

Yes they look like birch. You can darken them by using dark walnut stain. Do a little piece of it in an inconspicuous spot to try and match the rest of your stock.



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FPNI

To darken, I've found there's two schools of thought on M1 wood; stain and finish with modern materials or give it the classic RLO/BLO treatment. If you are matching other parts, try to keep with what is already been done but sometimes it's hard to know what a previous owner did.

In Korea they switched over to BLO from what I've read which was more durable but didn't oxidize like RLO (deep red tones). This was also when they started using wax to help protect from the elements.

You can read for hours on the CMP forums on wood care, everyone has their own opinion, and their own sources for oils/stains.

Kudos on keeping her as original as possible!

[ben4372]

You'll probably need to do some mixing of colors to get it perfect. You can get dark tung oil, easier to find online. I like it better than BLO. Either way, those are in nice shape. Just go find the rest of the set.

[spittoon]

Just wondering would CMP have the info on the rifle .With all the info they have they should have info on wood used in the time frame the rifle was built. But my 2 cents worth I would say birch