Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Pre 64 Model 70 Magnum Action

JRGunmaker. That's a beautiful rifle. All the rifles on your website are stunners.

Gorgeous...

Very elegant rifle JR it is like a classic sculpture it will never be out of style. Would you mind telling me how you finished the stock. Fine if it is proprietary. Looks like you used alkanet or it is a piece of Francotte Walnut? The color and figure is perfect, beautiful but not overwhelming.

Tejano
The blank is a piece of California grafted English Walnut I got from Dressels. I've used alkanet with some projects like Butch Lambert's Enfield Rigby, & TC1's Mini Mauser but it's much more work than the process I used on the rifle posted above, process shown below.

Seafin Teak Oil was used seal and to fill pores. Starting by soaking stock using a small acid flux brush and keeping the spots that soak up wet for about an hour then wipe and let dry. Then wet sanding about 3 times with 320 then once with 400 &600 with a day in between. The 320 sanding slurry coats are lightly wiped with a standard paper napkin (not paper towel, too absorbent) across the pores leaving just a little haze above the surface of the wood. Looks terrible in morning. 400 & 600 are only used when the pores are filled, then you can wipe to the surface of the wood. There is no buildup of finish, It's at & in the surface, not on it. I don't use any thinner with the TeakOil. It works great right out of the bottle. I decant the finish into those little airplane booze bottles and fill then to the top. My last stock took about one little bottle. Next step is to let the finish set a week or so making sure it doesn't get cold, then I checker it. After checkering I'll fix any dingbats with teak oil&600. Finish the checkering with a tooth brush & Teak Oil keeping it wet until it stops soaking then blotting/brushing dry. Then use a small piece of 3/16" thick felt with rottenstone & Seafin Teak Oil. It kind of evens out everything. Careful not to fill the checkering with any rottenstone. On the rifle posted above, I mixed a little inletting black with teak oil and tooth brushed it into the checkering on the second coat to darken it a little. Another "clear" top coat over the checkering a day later. Then as you noticed I stained the stock. This time I used Solar-Lux NGR American Walnut with some stain retarder and reducer until it was a little darker than I wanted. Then I used Daly's BenMatte for a wipe on & wait ~15 min & wipe off for around 5 or 6 coats. One coat per day. The Daly's BenMatte does not go in the checkering and I tooth brush around the checkering borders each time to make sure it doesn't build up. BenMatte is a GREAT top coat as it doesn't dry so fast and is buttery smooth when wiping it off. Gives it a nice glow.

Easy as a microwave burrito!

I've got a lot of test blocks around the shop form trying different finishing & staining techniques. I'd recommend testing to others. I don't stain very often.

The OP was looking to build in his spare time to come up with something worth selling. I'm hoping he ends up with a rifle so nice it's worth keeping.

JR:

Thank you and very generous of you to share your expertise and methods. I looked at the photo again and that satin sheen finish is amazing. Need to make this a sticky as you didn't leave anything out. Hope my next one comes out at least a little bit as nice as that rifle. Next one is Claro and thinking I'll need a filler or a whole bunch of coats of varnish just to get started on the oil finish.

Tag for later

RE; Left the Win.factory together, .hmmm.....then pulled apart [ all unwanted factory parts offloaded],. then what remains
is modified inside / out and from one end > to the other....thus it becomes nothing like it was 'originally from the factory'.

Some original Pre64 actions are so crappy [from the factory] that some smiths prefer not to use them.
IF one carefully selected action parts from an array of dissembled actions, one could come up with something noticeably better.




Only one exception and only a possible one at that? ...LOL.

The Pre-64 is definitely a great action. But that’s not the question.

Is it worth putting money into one? Sure, if you intend to keep it put whatever into it, if you are going to use it for 40 years and die with it it’s worth whatever you want to put into it.

Are you going to make a profit? IMHO no way. Custom rifles don’t make money. I also think it interesting guys that purchase rifles because ‘they always make money...’. There’s this thing called inflation that’s a real bitch.