Show and Tell - Winchester 70 and 94 Refinish

[mdmaroon]

Just finished a little beautification of my Winchester Model 94 and Winchester Model 70 (30-06).

The Model 70 was made in 1969. I've left the wood in its natural colour, no stain, and coated it with Varathane Diamond Wood Finish Outdoor Gloss.

The Model 94 was made in 1979. It has been stained darker than original with Minwax Dark Walnut Wood Stain and the same Varathane coating.

I removed the original varnish from both using Circa 1850 Furniture Stripper.

Here they are:

 

[Kilo Charlie]

Very nice, I wouldn't expect an unstained stock to be such a nice colour as that Model 70.

 

[D3TH_OVRH3D]

Something about those 94's... Very nice.

 

[Mauser98]

Here's a couple of shots of a 80's M70 Lightweight in .223Rem. It had spent some time on a fishing boat as a seal gun. The stock was beat up with little finish and the metal was covered in small rust pits.

I stripped the stock with Circa 1850 then went over the whole thing with a cabinet file and 80 grit sandpaper to get to fresh wood and take the old stain off. After sanding with multiple grits(up to 400), I finished it with Minwax Wipe-On Poly.

The barreled action requires a light draw filing with a single cut file then sanding with 80-320 grit. I finished it witha slow rust blue.

 

[NAA]

Nice job on your stocks guys.

I re-did the stock on this econo Win Model 670 in .308 Win that I scored awhile back. Completely stripped off the old finish, re-stained with Watco walnut, then a few coats of Howard's "feed & wax".

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NAA.

 

[kjohn]

Nice work on all of the rifles! I am always afraid to open a thread like this, for fear of some ugly, bubba'd job, but these are very nice, indeed!

 

[mdmaroon]

Very nice, I wouldn't expect an unstained stock to be such a nice colour as that Model 70.

Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised when I removed the old varnish on the 70 and was about to stain the wood. While doing some very light sanding and prep work I realized that it was actually a really nice piece of walnut in its natural colour! So I just put on a fresh coat of varnish and left it that. Didn't want to Bubba it. It looks exactly as it did before, minus a few missing, worn, and flaking areas of varnish. Probably looks much like it would have in 1969.

The Model 94 is real walnut, but it was a lighter wood that had been stained slightly darker. I stained it even darker, and re-varnished it. Looks better than ever. I picked that gun up for $250 back in 1993. I bet it's worth a little more now, but I'd never sell it so I don't really care about that.

I traded used snow tires for the Model 70.

Thanks for your comments and photos of other Model 70's. All very nice!