Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors 1919 Stock Finish

Hey, don’t laugh. How do you think the government arsenals got all those 03 and Garand stocks finished.

They dipped them in vats of hot oil, either linseed or tung depending on what kind of deal the procurement officer could get at the time. This I got from a horse's mouth, a guy who was there almost 80 years ago.

I said it before, the Armorys/Arsenals and commercial companies did that not because it was the best finish but because it was cheap and quick. In the case of the gov't, what do they care if a GI's gunstock didn't hold up, they would just slap another one on.

After making a test board of 4 different stains, the only one that comes close to the original tint, and it comes very close, is Minwax Wood Finish Penetrating Stain, color is gunstock #231. It's oil based. I thought that I had exhausted my local stain options, and saw this on the shelf. I had zero confidence of it working but decided, wth. Half strength it just looks like a watered down version of the others I've tried. Full strength, wow does it pop. I'll varnish and then compare it to an original finish that is in good shape, but without the varnish it has a very light red/orange hue to it and looks like a match. So far I'm happy with it.

You go! Do keep us posted.

damnesia - be sure to post your results. On a related topic, does anyone know why some of the gun companies tinted their stocks red in the first place? I think it was a way to make the wood (an imperfect medium) from stock to stock appear more consistent. Of course it also could have been an appeal to the aesthetics of the time. In other words, it was just what a gun stock was supposed to look like. Any thoughts?

I use #225 Red Mahogany.

Good question. I never thought about it. Style back then, like camp is a style now?

Hey Damnesia,

Here's a .250-3000 on gun broker ( https://www.gunbroker.com/item/786183094) with what I would say, is original finish. It actually has a pretty decent piece of wood on it....pearch belly stock with lots of fiddleback in the grain.

Hope this helps!

Finally got around to this project. This is my first real wood project, historically my wood projects come out horribly. I've been restoring and working on cars, and restoring vintage machinery, for a couple decades now, and have at least decent metal finishing skills. After I realized all sanding is, is polishing wood, things made sense and went very well, in my opinion anyway. Also when I realized sanding with the grain EVERYWHERE makes a huge difference in the grain pattern showing. Then I learned that staining close(ish) to factory finish hides most of said grain pattern.

The Minwax gun stock oil based stain is awesome and with some practice could easily duplicate a factory finish. My stocks came out darker than I wanted, much darker than the test boards I was using. Compared to the finish on my 1915 250-3000, which I now understand is sporting the original finish, it's almost identical, but mine is slightly too dark. I put it on full strength for 15 minutes, per the instructions. My test boards were too light at 10 minutes and at 15 they looked acceptable. I guess next time I should find some 100+ year old scraps of walnut to test with... When the varnishing is done, it should look a little brighter. The sealer is drying as I type this so hopefully I'll be done with it in a week or so. I took some pictures but they look awful from my phone's camera. I'll see if I can post some decent pictures along the way, maybe someone is interested.

Pics are always good!

Beats workin that's all I can say.

Finally mostly finished the stocks. I haven't polished them yet and there is no wax on them. I need to glue a plug in the screw hole for the grip cap, a butt stock screw was being used when I got the stock.

Just to re-iterate I got this rifle after someone else had ruined it. This gun came to be having been badly buffed, re-blued and with a cut butt stock. It also had a monogram lightly engraved on the left side of the receiver. I draw filed the monogram out ( less than .002" deep ), flattened the flats and sharpened up the corners and edges. I also repaired all the screw heads, although I awesomely buggered one up when installing the metal "spacer" on the end of the fore stock. I completely disassembled the entire gun, minus the bolt, stripped it and rust blued every part I hope was blued from the factory. The wood was finished with my first use of varnish. I wasn't going for perfection, I just didn't want to shoot a gun with someone else's name on it. I wanted to do another round of bluing but I ran out of time. Under a bright light you can see where the degreaser discolored the metal slightly in a couple of places. But honestly no one else has noticed but me.

The stain looks more red in person. It's difficult to take pictures of the wood that convey the true color.

Looks good.

Lee

Bravo! Darned nice job of work.

Looks really good.

Good workmanship!

Yes, nice job , and thanks for all the sharing here.

Though mostly on vintage Winchesters not Savages I have had good luck with the gunstock walnut Minwax stain, even added some red mahogany to it at times. GB Linspeed is also a favorite of mine when trying to replicate a vintage finish, an application of Renaissance wax and a buff with a microfiber cloth produces a very acceptable finish.

Aniline dyes are way more colorfast (UV resistant), won't muddy grain/figure, and really makes grain "pop" when the finish goes on, than any oil-based stain.

The usual method employed by stockers to achieve that familiar red tint way back when was to use alcohol suffused with alkanet root. No big deal to mix it today- buy some dried alkanet root, soak it in denatured alcohol until it is as strongly red as you want it.

While Linspeed isn't a bad oil finish, as oil finishes go, in this case the proper finish on this vintage rifle is exactly what the gentleman employed- varnish.