An easy way to remove cosmoline from a wood stock

I picked up a Chinese Type 53 from J&G Sales and it was just fouled through and through with cosmoline.  The action and receiver I finally boiled out with hot water.

However I can't do that with the wood stock.

At first i used a flat head screwdriver to scrape out what I could in the inletted portion, but this stuff is in the grain of the wood.  So I laid out some newspaper, taped it together so I would be able to roll the stock up in it.  Then I added cat litter, making sure to get it into the inletted parts.  The I rolled it up and taped it all closed.

The stock then went out into my suburban which sits out in the hot sun, day after day.

I figured it would be a few days and the stock would have sweat out most of the cosmoline.

If it had stayed sunny, it might have done just that.  Mother Nature didn't oblige and started some scattered showers and lots of cloud cover.  Sort of ruining that plan.

However, I live in the sticks, and I have PVC of various sizes and rating lying around for and from various projects.

So I needed a way to heat the stock up enough to melt out the cosmoline so the cat litter could absorb it.

Simple.

Some 6" Schedule 35 PVC left over from a septic tank repair and an electric space heater.

Put the wrapped and kitty littered stock parts inside the PVC pipe and point the space heater on the low setting down the pipe.

I pulled the stock out a few minutes to go and on the outside of the stock which was tacky and gooey with cosmoline, it is now mostly dry with a light coating of clay dust from the litter.  I scraped out a little bit more from the inside then re wrapped the stock in more paper and put it back in the tube with the heater blowing through it again.  I'm thinking, by tomorrow, I should have enough cosmoline melted out of the stock, that I can go ahead and put the rifle back together and take it shooting.

If Mother Nature cooperates. 

Which she hasn't done today.  Another .08 inches of rain according to my neighbors rain gauge.  And I really don't want to use 4 Wheel drive to get over to the other property to shoot.