Stock stain question

[armymutt]

I stripped the factory stain off my stock on my 16" R92. I'm not familiar with the pros and cons of different forms of stain. Lowe's has the poly based minwax stains while BC has alcohol based stains. Which is better quality and which is harder to deal with - application and cleanup. I'm still debating on what color to stain it. I'm wondering how a red stain will look on these rifles.

[mr surveyor]

I would say it depends on the type of finish you want to end up with and how much time you plan to put into it. Alcohol base stains seem to me to penetrate deeper and allow you to use just about any type finish you want. In my limited woodworking, poly base stain tended to limit me to some type of poly finish. I really like the deep luster of hand rubbed oil finish so I tend to prefer alcohol or mineral spirit based stain. When I was younger and tinkered a bit more, an old feller told me how to soak chewing tobacco in mineral spirits (lots of color variations .... Bull of the Woods = Dark ..... Mail Pouch = Light). Makes a good, all natural stain, and oil finishes do well with them.

There's other guys here with a lot more knowledge and experience than I have. Just sharing my limited know how.

JD

[akuser47]

Well this thread I am linking is dated but it is what lead me to joining up here. maybe it will help some here as well. Some from this forum has migrated over here from this forum so it has helped some.
http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_6_47/36133 ... oose_.html

[Model 52]

In the mid 1980's the guys I hung with who were refinishing Garands, P14 and P17 Enfields. '03 Springfields and M1 Carbines used a similar approach with coffee as the stain, in either a mineral spirit or denatured alcohol carrier.

Dissolve as much as it will take and then as needed to get the desired color.

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Otherwise, find an alcohol based stain or a water based stain if you want to finish with Tru-oil, Boiled Tung Oil, or Boiled Linseed Oil.

An alcohol based stain is potentially easier as it will not raise the grain as can be the case with a water based stain, that will same having to use steel wool to remove any whispers and it takes less effort to fill then grain.

I've found however that with hardwoods such as birch that raising the grain is not really an issue with a water based stain, and while I'm not sure what wood Rossi uses, I don't think raising the grain would be an issue with it. Michaels and AC Moore both carry water based wood stains.

Leather dye is another possible option that some folks have tried, but I can't speak from experience with it to any great extent. The one time I tried it, I used a brown that then looked a bit on the orange side on a birch stock. In fact, it was a great match for the rather orange looking stock on my Yugoslavian M59/66.

The good news is that most stains will strip back off/out pretty easily with Minwax Antique Furniture Refinisher or Formby's Conditioning Furniture Refinisher, so if you don't like it you can remove it and try something else.

[singleshotcajun]

A very effective stain can be easily made by mixing RIT clothing dye and Denatured alcohol. I like RIT Cocoa dye for a dark reddish brown stock .
http://www.rossi-rifleman.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2577