Rossi Rifleman

How about some pics of your handy work!

pricedo wrote: The cheap Rossi shoe polish (which it probably is) served as a good dark color pigment for the oil.
Cleaning with mineral spirits would have been counterproductive as the stripped, cleaned and oiled gun stocks I've seen look too light and "anemic" & stripping and cleaning would have been way too much like work.

That was my take on it as well - Experimenting on un finished areas of the stock suggested that nothing I had was going to stain the wood dark enough to get a walnut color, and I am not a fan of blonde looking wood, or lighter "walnut" stained birch colored wood.

I did however take the stock and fore end off to "finish" them, as it's only a 5 minute process and ensures the metal is not scratched or gooped in the process.

Just lay down a little bit of masking tape in w/m contact areas then SLOP ER ON.
Put the tape on the metal....not the wood.
A little TO getting into the w/m contact area serves as a water seal til the next major stripping/cleaning after hunting season and then you can reseal with TO while you're touching up the finish.
You can only do the sealing operation effectively while the wood is ON the gun.
There's method in my madness.