Rifle stock facelift

I got bored a few days ago and decided to sand down the old .22 and make it look good again. I killed 2 birds with one stone doing this project. I not only removed the 30+ year old varnish but, I also accomplished some of my occupational therapy for my shoulder at the same time lol.

I have owned this single shot .22 since my freshman year in high school and I have beat it up a little over the years and the past few years it has become my trapping gun. It's the lightest gun I have ever carried and deadly accurate as Dante can attest to when it comes to running groundhogs lmao.

Here is what I started with.



You can't see it very well but there are scratches, dings, and dents in that stock. It has beat the brush pretty hard over the years.

After sanding it all down and removing the varnish that was a little on the orange side and nasty I found a great looking wood and I would almost say it's walnut but I'm not 100% sure on that.

I decided to show off the wood and just put a semi-gloss polyurethane back on it. Here it is after the 1st coat.




Here it is after the 3rd coat.





Turned out great and I'm very happy with it. Never would have guessed that great wood was hidden under that ugly varnish.

Thanks fellas. Next project is to make my own stock for it this summer. Thought about osage but who knows what I will finally end up with lol.

"J" said:

Adam what grit did you use too bring out the wood grain?

Did you get any of the minor dings out? Using steam?

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I started off with a 150 grit to get the old finish off. I did manage to get all the dings and scratches out of it at the same time. I then used hot water on cloth (just damp not soaked) to wipe it down after I would sand to remove the dust but to also open the wood grain up. After I got the varnish off and put the first coat on I switched over to 220 grit paper. I used that paper after each poly coat to knock off the high spots so it was just light sanding between coats.

"J" said:

I've got an old Glenfield that I'm going too be looking at doing this too.... You've got me motivated now lol....

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Might as well do it J. You never know what kind of wood is under there. You could do what I did our what Tom said if you like the look of the wood and grain you find. If you don't then you could always do a different color stain lol.

Hortontoter said:

Looks great. What better way to do some therapy.

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It was definitely a win win if you ask me lol.