I finally was able to track down a pistol grip, checkered stock from the correct time period for my 1919 1899 .250-3000 which came to me with a cut butt. The replacement I bought needs refinished. I have never seen an 1899 from this era that had the original finish in nice shape. My question is, what sort of finish do I want to use to look correct? The stocks I've done in the past, I used Ed's Red and Tru-Oil and they came out nice, but I'm not sure it would look anything like what would have come on a 1899 from 1919.

I'm filling time with research while I wait impatiently for my new to me take down 1899A. Well it would have been called a 99A but this one is an 1899 and I don't know if Savage used the letters for 1899s. My first straight stock 1899!

Thanks.

Hey, what's the 1899A chambered in, and what year? Perchbelly, or straight stock?

Here is a pic of the finish of the stock on my 1916 1899 250-3000

Serial number 2041XX 1919 250-3000 Rifle.

Sorry for the dark pics, the rifle isn't quite that dark. For some reason my flash is flashing, then the shutter is clicking a second later. Guess that's why they call it a smart phone.

I believe it's DOB was 1912, but that is an estimate I came up with from memory based on the serial number, I need to confirm. It does have a perch belly and is chambered in 303 Savage. Did I buy it from you?

Thanks for the pictures. Looks like my 1915 250-3000 is sporting the original finish, I thought it had been refinished since it was so shiny.

After looking at the posted pictures, my 1915 1899 and other pictures online, to me the stocks on the 1899s slightly red or orange, at least form like 1910 to 1920. Or maybe the coloring I'm seeing is just what the finish looks like after 100 years. Also, it looks like it might not be an oil finish as I was expecting. I can't find information on how Savage finished the stocks during this time period. Does this info exist and am I just not searching correctly? Any help is appreciated.

Thanks.

I have refinished stocks in pure Tung, Linseed, Lin-Speed. I like the tung oil flat look on the older rifle stocks. Lin-speed (which I *think* is simply linseed with some varnish mixed in) is the most beautiful though with a slighly shiny look.
I am told that the tung oil holds up better in all weather conditions vs Lin-speed finishes. YMMV.

Murray’s 3rd addition says the finish on the Model 1899 250-3000 was varnish.

Thanks guys. I was thinking of spraying it with water based lacquer, mainly because I'm have experience applying it and it looks awesome. I think it probably look pretty close to varnish. But I've never use varnish so, I'll do up some test boards to see what I like.

Thanks again.

I suspect it was after the 1899/99 change that Savage cheapened their finishes a bit, at least as a personal observation. Before that varnish ruled the day, after that oil finishes became prevalent.

They didn't use lacquer ever as far as I can tell, and certainly not shellac. Lacquer is hard and unyielding, not the preferred finish on a piece of wood that may be subjected to dramatic swings in ambient moisture. The finish must be flexible (which lacquer isn't) to move when the wood moves or it could craze. Shellac is right out there. Ever set a wet glass on a shellaced piece of furniture, or worse yet spill alcohol on it? 'Nuff said.

Nothing beats good old spar varnish for a period correct finish, and a finish that remains excellent among today's finishes.

Ed's Red for a wood tint??? Are you sure you want to apply something with petroleum in it to wood? (Automatic transmission fluid being a major ingredient.) Ed's Red is a super bore solvent, but for wood finishing not on your life.

Lots of debate as to how Winchester, Savage, and others achieved the warm red tint in their stocks "back in the day". Conventional wisdom is that alkanet root was the answer. Lots written about it. Google is your friend.

Linspeed oil? Meh. I did a couple stocks with it back in another life and swore off of it after watching a monsoon rain strip a M94 stock down to swollen gray bare wood. I won't sit here and say that I never ever employ an oil finish on a stock, but when I do it's either under protest or to emulate a factory finish that was originally oil, such as on a 30's-50's vintage Savage or a U.S. milsurp. I don't know how Savage did it, but Springfield Armory dipped stocks into vats of hot oil and I wouldn't be a bit surprised to learn that commercial ventures did a similar trick. (This I got from a "horses mouth", an old guy who did his Army training to be an Artificer at Springfield during the War. They used linseed and tung oil interchangeably depending on what kind of a deal the procurement officer could get. There is no practical difference between the two, no matter what the old wive's may say.)

Tru Oil? Help yourselves. The only reason it gets a lot of press is by virtue of Birchwwod Casey's marketing. If it's on every gun shop shelf in the country it's got to be good right? Right? If you want to do it cheaply and just as effectively, just mix some spar varnish and pure oil (again it matters not if it's linseed or tung) about 50/50 and presto, Tru Oil. The most diligent way is to use artist grade pure oil (from the neighborhood art supply store) because you don't know what you're getting off the hardware store shelf. Nor, for that matter, do we know how long the Tru Oil has been gathering dust in the gunshop.

In conclusion, oil finishes may be pretty and are certainly easy to apply, but present the worst weather protection of any possible finish. A moot point if the rifle will never see hunting weather. At least apply a good paste wax too for a modicum of protection. Learning to do a spar varnish period correct finish isn't rocket science and has a pretty short learning curve. In truth, anymore I find it to be no more taxing than doing a proper oil finish, and if done right may lead some folks to think they're looking at a fine oil finished stock.* Ask the folks who've seen my varnish finishes.

* By "fine oil finish" I mean one in which the pores are righteously filled flush with the wood surface before the oiling begins. And I don't mean by sanding in slurries or patent pore filling substances. They will shrink with time and Ye Olde Pores are back staring you in the face. Patiently apply varnish or epoxy, sanding and reapplying as necessary until pores are filled flush to otherwise bare naked wood.

Hah. I meant to type "French Red". My dad gave me a partial bottle a long time ago so that's what I've used in the past for stain.

Thanks for the info on lacquer vs. varnish. I picked up some spar-varnish and will test it out. Sounds like that is the direction I want to go.

Another approach is to use aniline dyes. Alcohol based and as such can be diluted to whatever tint you desire. They will be UV resistant and durable to boot, and make the wood "pop" like nothing else.

To my knowledge the old "French Red" was actually an aniline dye of sorts- alkanet root leached into alcohol. Good stuff. I wish I could stumble onto an old bottle of it. Definitely do a test board- you don't want to be too red.

I am thinking that Old Masters, which is Tung and Varnish, might be the perfect answer for a gun stock finish after having used it on a black walnut desk I recently finished.
This was after 8 coats. It appears and feels very durable. Maybe I should put it out in the rain for a while?

Nice. But like I said earlier an oil finish, even one as pretty as that, pales in comparison to a barrier finish in terms of water fenestration. If the goal is a stock that will be used in all weather conditions, oil finishes are not your friend. If the goal is a stock that will be used for bragging and/or sunny days at the range then "hand rubbed oil finishes" are fine and dandy. Even those of us who avoid dragging their guns out in inclement weather sometimes get caught out, at least I do. Of course environmental conditions where the gun "lives" are a consideration too- a fella in Arizona wouldn't be as concerned about all this as would a guy who lives where humidity and rain are an insidious fact of life.

To that end, yeah put it outside for a couple rain storms and get back to me on how well it held up. Fine furniture and gun stocks have a lot of traits in common, but outdoor durability isn't one of them. Don't compare apples to oranges.

I too have to think that spar varnish had to rule the day "back in the day." Many of the finishes we have today are hybrids including (which I'm pretty damn sure of) Linspeed Oil. I have restored several bamboo fly rods and a few years back I really got into original finishes. Many of the old bamboo rods were dipped in a vat of spar varnish as the final stage of production and many rod builders today still use the same technique. I am also pretty darn sure that the foundation of many of our current hybrids (and glues) were an outgrowth of technological advances that were made during WWII.

I find tung oil interesting. I like tung oil but there is just no way in heck you are going to get any sort of shine out of it. In addition, when you are marketing things shine is pretty damn important as people are just naturally drawn to shiny things. I also bet you that if you were to fire up the time machine and step into a hardware store circa-1920s you would find little more than spar varnishes on the shelf and guns with shiny stocks for sale on the rack. Tung oil will not give you that but spar varnish certainly will.

Everett Garrison devised a series of weights and pulleys to withdraw a split cane fly rod section out of a pipe filled with varnish at a rate that exactly matched the drying time of the varnish. It made for a perfect finish. I wracked my brain to come up with a similar contraption to varnish gun stocks but it is impractical due to: It would take a hellacious amount of varnish to fill a large pipe, and the need for sanding between coats to fill pores would dictate repeated submersion's and I would go nuts standing around waiting. (A short trip, I know.)

I think you would go nuts as I think the extraction time for pulling rods out of varnishing tanks is very slow and steady. Still an interesting idea. A dip tank for gun stocks might work if the varnishing material is thinned out. And I'm not so sure it would take gallons more of varnish when compared to a rod dip tank as those are often long enough to do at least a two piece 9-ft rod - and a rifle stock is much shorter than that.

For the guy with more time than not.

You guys crack me up!

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.