Winchester 94 Surgery

[J.Baker]

Decided to put a Decelerator pad on my Winchester 94 Big Bore so I ordered a pre-fit. I knew the odds of it fitting perfectly were slim to none, but I hoped if anything it would be proud rather than small so I could just grind it down to fit. No such luck. Hadn't planned on cutting the stock down, but the new pad was a hair over 1/8" short so I ended up lopping 3/8" off which would give me a 13-3/4" LOP (stock was 13-1/2"). This left the stock almost a perfect match for the new pad and I just had to touch up a few small spots to get it right.

Going this far I decided what the hell - might as well refinish the stock and forearm as well. Both had a few very small handling marks that I could easily live with, but the high gloss factory finish wasn't really want I wanted on a hunting rifle. So out came the Citri Strip, plastic scrapers and nylon bristle brushes.

Not sure what I'm going to use to refinish it yet. Have a can of CP Gun Sav'R aerosol finish, some Truoil, boiled Linseed Oil, and of course some MinWax Satin polyurethane clear. I've used all but the linseed oil in the past and all are a little glossy for my liking, but not sure if I want to use this stock set as a guinea pig for my first linseed oil refinish and each application of linseed oil takes forever to dry.

[drybean]

get yourself some satin Tung oil

[J.Baker]

Well, I bit the bullet and am doing the boiled linseed oil finish. Cutting it 50/50 with mineral spirits to cut the drying time some, but it's still going to be a slow process.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v632/MrFurious45833/Gun%20Stuff/Win94_stock.jpg

[GaCop]

get yourself some satin Tung oil +1. I've used Formby's on a number of stocks and it comes out a nice oil finish with no shine. Easy to touch up scratches too.

[J.Baker]

Fifth coat of BLO applied and allowed to sit for 24 hours before I put it back together. Now it will sit in the rack for a few weeks to fully cure out, then after deer season it will get one coat a month for a couple months and I'll call it good.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v632/MrFurious45833/My%20Guns/DSC00847.jpg

In the meantime I need to do a little research to see what can be done about the slop in the action. The lever is pretty loose and has a lot of play which I'm told is fairly typical of post-64 Model 94's. Hopefully a couple shims will do the trick to at least keep it from being a rattle-box in the woods.

[GaCop]

Wood looks good!

[tufrthnails]

Very Nice job on it. I got an old Winchester 370 .410 my son shoots I am thinking about practicing on.