The new walnut rifle stock that I have needs some red color in it for my taste. The data on these stocks is that they are oil finished.

Can I just rub some French Red in? What's the best proceedure?

Savage99, I have done the very thing you're talking about with Dixie Gun Works' "Dixie Gunstock Stain," which also happens to be (as Turner Kirkland told us in older editions of the catalog) Fiebing Chemical Company's Mahogany leather dye, available at http://tandyleather.com/ and most anywhere they sell leatherworking stuff. It's a "spirit stain," a dye dissolved in alcohol, and it penetrates right through an oil finish. It's a very red mahogany color, and I think it's lovely on a gunstock.

If a stain, such as the one you describe, can penetrate an oil finish, then it's pretty obvious that the finish in question won't keep moisture out very well, either.

I had a custom stockmaker build a rifle for me about twenty years ago. The wood finish he used was a natural oil, which he favored, in part, because "it allows the wood to breath". As I later found out with that rifle, if a wood stock can "breath" it can also drown, and that finish was absolutely abysmal in terms of durability and was ruined on ONE single wet Oregon elk hunt. In 1998, I hunted in B.C. with another oil-finshed wood-stocked rifle, and the finish was completely washed out of the pores during a snowstorm that produced big, wet flakes of snow.

Based on these episodes, I'm convinced that there's no such thing as a "good old-fashioned" oil finish (I agree with the "old fashioned" assessment), except possibly for lookin' guns that'll be admire in the den at home, double shotguns that'll be used in dry weather, or maybe African rifles that'll be used in dry weather. For all-around durability, the various synthetic finishes are far superior to any oil, and look just as good.

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I think your right Allen. Years ago my late dad used a flooring finish called Fabulon on our gunstocks. That coating, whatever it is, is still on those rifles forty years later and they are reliable wood stocked hunting rifles.



Just the common sense of it says that a protected stock has a better chance than on that is not.



The thing is that these two Kimbers here are just toys at this point but one in fact has survived a easy going season with the oil finish. I think I will stain the 7-08 and then maybe coat it with poly. The 260 is destined to be a range rifle, safe queen and fair weather varminter.



Richochet,



Thanks for the lead on the stain. I will try it in the barrel channel first.

Savage99 If you have the new M84 Kimbers I believe the finish is a "satin oil look" and really a poly type, not oil. At least this is what I was lead to believe when I purchased mine.

The catalog says the finish is "hand rubbed oil". The owners manual on the topic of care and cleaning says "Wipe the wood stock on your Kimber with a good quality wood or furniture polish or wax."



I may call them up tommorrow.



Here is the 260.

Sure is a pretty rifle!