Wood finish for gunstocks

[HiggityHank]

I'm refinishing an old Stevens .410 single shot, because it was beat to hell, and as some practice. Tore it down, cleaned up the metal, and stripped the wood... but now I'm at an impasse. I had originally planned to stain and satin poly the wood, to give it some shine and toughen it up, but the more I look at the wood, the more I feel like it might be a shame to poly it. My dad suggested butchers wax, tung oil, or dutch oil... and while I feel like the oils may be good choices, I don't know how they'd wear on a gun.

Anyone have any input on refinishing gun furniture?

(also, I'd be making a thread about this process, but like a jackass I forgot to take "before" pics )

 

[Knob Creek]

Here is a link to my old bud Longshot Logan's website. Longshot was a Cowboy Action shooter from Rhode Island who did great work with gunstocks. I refinished several stocks with this method using a Tung Oil Finish. Sadly he has passed away but his tips for wood refinishing are still available:

http://members.cox.net/longshot_logan/SRefinish.htm

 

[daltrey99]

Tung oil finish is what I use. It works and looks great

 

[JohnFH]

Here is a Stevens .410 I just refinished, stripped, stained, Formbys low gloss oil finish and a few heavy coats of Butchers Paste Wax. You have to use the wax over the oil because the oil finish will get white spots if it gets wet.

 

[HiggityHank]

Update on this: 6 coats of Tung Oil put the shine right where I wanted it.
Knob, thanks again for that link, I hadn't even thought of steaming out the dents, it worked beautifully.
Pics incoming... still just "after" pics... but better than no pics at all.

 

[38ExtraSpecial]

try out some tru oil from birchwood and casey, or permalyn (sp?)
follow the instructions and you'll be all set. i would use a light sandpaper in between the coats to sand out the high spots and streaks. using fine steel wool can conform to the streaks and not really level them out.

i've finished one stock this way, and i use the same method to finish any of my natural wood knife handles.

 

[mac1911]

just for info, I used a waterbased moly coat that is intended for marine use on a few of my field guns. tough as nails.

 

[Chuck Would]

Longshot Logan AKA Dennis Gillis was a incredible working with wood. He was doing custom grips for Colt before he passed. Colt Single Actions.

 

[blindndead]

Here is a link to my old bud Longshot Logan's website. Longshot was a Cowboy Action shooter from Rhode Island who did great work with gunstocks. I refinished several stocks with this method using a Tung Oil Finish. Sadly he has passed away but his tips for wood refinishing are still available:

http://members.cox.net/longshot_logan/SRefinish.htm

That work is beautiful!!! Good link his skill lives on..

 

[garandman]

try out some tru oil from birchwood and casey, or permalyn (sp?)
follow the instructions and you'll be all set. i would use a light sandpaper in between the coats to sand out the high spots and streaks. using fine steel wool can conform to the streaks and not really level them out.

i've finished one stock this way, and i use the same method to finish any of my natural wood knife handles.

I've used tung oil finishes and Tru Oil, which is polymerized BLO formulation, I'm told. Used Tru Oil on the [commercial stock] rifle I used for JCG matches. I used extra fine steel wool and kept adding thin coats until the finish was glass smooth. Then I buffed it with the steel wool again to take a little of the shine off.

 

[Boghog1]

another fan of Tru Oil I used it on my Remington 760 that was made in 1955, I wish the furniture they made today was made as nice