Thread: rifle stock finish.

Hi Sean, I would recommend that you use a spirit based stain to obtain the colour you are after before applying any kind of finish.

I currently use Feast and Watson prooftint stains and am happy with the results I have had.
There are quite a few different colours avaliable which can be intremixed to get the colour you want or even ad the reducer to dilute any of them.Then you can just finish with your preferred recipe

Rifle stocks are usually walnut or some other "exotic" timber, you normally don't use stain just a high quality oil finish, of course that does depend on the value of the rifle

Originally Posted by mark david

Hi Sean, I would recommend that you use a spirit based stain to obtain the colour you are after before applying any kind of finish.

Sean, I use the Birchwood Casey Tru-oil for gun stock finishing to very good effect. For a darker finish use whatever stain you'd like under it and get the colour as you want it before building up your oil finish to whatever level of grain fill you want to achieve. If you buy the Birchwood Casey kit it has a walnut stain included. You can achieve a nice gloss or a matt finish as preferred https://www.birchwoodcasey.com/Refin...ck-Finish.aspx.

The kit: https://www.birchwoodcasey.com/Refin...inish-Kit.aspx

If you haven't yet stripped the stock down, I use hand scrapers to remove the old finish before a fine sanding.

A tip though, If you have chequering/checkering on the stock, mask it off before building up your oil finish on the rest of the stock and then unmask it for the last coat or two of oil, depending on the finish required and how thick you apply the oil at the time - don't fill in the checkering. If the checkering is worn down and you want to renew it, order yourself a couple of Dem-bart hand checkering tools, you'll need to measure the number of lines in the checkering per inch to order the right head but it's worth the effort for a nice crisp finish on the stock. http://www.shooters.com.au/categorie...=3662&c=135242

cheers
Greg

thank you guys,very good info.
the stock is for an omark target rifle. [open sights]
ive used the blow a couple times on another couple of rifles to good effect.
only this time i wanted the same finish but reddish.
there isnt any checkering,but i did have a couple of miner repairs to do.
first one was reshaping the fore end as i chipped it [big scallop]
then i had to modify the butt to take the butt pad.nothing really fits properly these days.
after i get the insert and fit it,for the fore end sling swivel,
all i need to do is bed the action and coat the wood.....
doesnt sound like much,but its still a few weeks off getting done.
there doesnt seem to be anyone out here that can do bedding.
[west of emerald]

regards

sean.

Find an artist who paints with oils. I recall that there are a bunch of different "reds."
Some are "covering" colors and some are transparent "staining" colors.
Blue is a stunning stock finish if you want to go that far.

thanks for all your replys fellas.
i appreciate it.
i ended up just using the standard BLO,the timber turned out a reddish colour.
i think my ol grandad would be happy.it was his rifle.
RIP Tiny.