BL22 refinish? yay or nay? Update!

C

C.308

CGN Regular
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Hamilton
I just got a BL22 of the EE. Its in decent but well used shape. I didn't pay top dollar so I'm OK with the condition it came in. I got a very fair deal.

It has a good amount of wear and dings in both the forestock and the butt stock. Not horrible and I could live with it. The metal is very nice except for some very minor pitting on the receiver that is barely noticable.

I have, refinished a few stocks with boiled linseed oil and I love the looks ive been able to pull off. I'm not a huge fan of hi gloss anyway, so i have a huge temptation to work on this one. I might be working on a couple other stocks too, which really got the ball rolling on pondering this one. (An sks and a mini 14)

Would it be horrible to strip the finish off this bad boy and steam out the dings and give it a few coats of BLO? Im not overly concerned with the value dropping but it would be nice to know that I wont be making it worthless. The way I see it, a nice refinished stock's value might be similar to a slightly beat up stock with the original finish.

Any thoughts?
 
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That finish is a beech to git awff.
Your shewter..................................go furr it.

Oh, taws sum before'n after photos tuh make this thread ligit.
 
Id do it, she already dinged up, no sentimental value why not if ones competent to do so. A nice blo finsih is much nicer than the high gloss in my opinion. Ive yet to find a finish on anything that stands up to circa 1850.
 
It will be nice to see a deserving rifle made beautiful again & it sounds like you know what your doing with refinishing. I would say go for it.
If you were interested, It would be great to see some before, in process, & after pictures.
 
If you enjoy refinishing stocks, then go ahead and do it. I bought a CZ 452 some years ago from a fellow who refinsihed the wood, he did an excellent job, looks much more attractive than all of my factory finishes....FS
 
Clean up with fine steel wool , but do not refinish . Refinishing is never good in this case. Once done you can never go back .
Browning finish is hell to remove .
 
Tru oil, it's like linseed but cures better, a bit more glossy than some like but really brings out the grain.
 
I refinished a BPS a few years back with Tru-Oil and while the end result was great it was a ton of work getting that super thick high gloss factory finish off. I was using professional grade stripper and I still had to apply and re-apply quite a number of times before I hit the wood grain. If you think it will enhance your enjoyment of the gun, do it.

Patrick
 
cody c said:
Tru oil, it's like linseed but cures better, a bit more glossy than some like but really brings out the grain.
Click to expand...

It doesn't have to be glossy, just rub it down with 0000 steel wool until the finish is where you want it.
 
Mangun said:
A friend of mine did his & it looks great I am going to do mine as well but my butstock is stubborn to come off
Click to expand...

The bolt holding the butt stock has an narrow slot. You need a long screw driver with a narrow wide blade. It's easy to bypass the bolt head and try to turn the screw driver thinking your centred . Could damage the stock. Finished mine glossy, glossy, glossy. Hard to do.
 
Well, after a bit of a fuss taking the butt stock off, eventually I was successful. That screw was TIGHT! I ended up clamping the stock in my vise and using a ratchet with a long extension and a flathead bit and carefully cracked it free.

Once apart i gave everything a generous coating of circa 1850 furniture stripper, adding more as needed.

After reading about the horrors of removing the gloss finish from a Browning I almost bailed on this project.
But the stripper worked wonderfully and fast. A little sanding and some BLO and I could not be happier. I'll be applying more coats of oil over time.

I almost forgot to take a before pic. I snapped a couple right before adding the stripper. They dont really show the extent of the damage to the finish due to poor lighting (at some point i have to make a gun photo studio lol!). It wasn't horrible but that gloss showed every little mark.

Well there you have it. Thanks for reading.

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