Dark top on 91/30 Sniper

quite some time ago, well before I actually started collecting milsurs as a hobbie, I bought an Izzy Sniper, 91/30 from a close friend and collector. The gun is out of the very first batch imported into the states by century. I shoot the gun often and it's performance is superb. the gun is a text book example of a 91/30 snip. except the top wood had been darkened. My friend thought it may have been done by the sniper to keep the glare down. Has anyone else ever seen this? it's not black or any thing like that, just very dark what appears to be some heating of the shellac or something, Very cool looking, but strange._SDH:dunno:

It's probably less sophisticated than that. Is the rifle a refurbed sniper? If so, it's normal to see a mix-match of wood color. If not a refurb, the handguard could just be a darker replacement to fix a damaged part.

To be quite honest, I just don't know if had been re-furbished. I dated the parts and they are correct for the 1944 time frame, other than that I just can't tell. The top wood just looks tainted dark, but, match's the gun very well. Thanks-SDH

Could just be that the wood under the shellac was darker too. I doubt the Soviets in 1944 cared too much about how well the colors matched up when they assembled these ;)

I got thinking about and wonder, maybe it got a sunburn. Doe's shellac get darker when exposed in the sun??-SDH

No, shellac is supposed to be resistant to sun darkening - more so than almost any other clearcoat finish.

Fair enough, just a thought. Many thanks-SDH