I was afraid to try and refinish this stock because I didn't want to ruin the tiger stripe/fiddle back effect of the grain-I thought there was great potential hidden under the Ruger factory finish. A recent surgery has kept me indoors and unable to do anything for a while-I went stir crazy and decided to give it a go.

Before picture is the issued from the factory finish that I've posted before here on the campfire. The after picture is-well, after. I stripped the factory finish and then gave it two coats of Gale Lock black walnut 1884(I think-the bottle isn't in front of me) Brownells describes it as chocolate brown with yellow hightlights. I then followed up with quite a few coats of boiled linseed oil.

I think it was a good decision to refinish. Most importantly I didn't pull any stitches. The only problem is-I may have found a new hobby (finding and refinishing tiger striped birch stocks) which I don't need. I just bought a 10/22 because it had the twin sister to this stock and 2 M14 stocks that are tiger striped birch (with 50 years of dirt and linseed oil on them)-just to refinish. I'll probably resell them, but I'm afraid once I get them done I'll justify keeping them. I've got two boys-need one for each? eek There I go. Then again-my wife was told I'm going to sell them.

Feedback on the before and after welcome.

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