Centaur 1

I’ve recently refinished the stocks on a couple of my guns, a Remington 700 BDL and a Mossberg 500 20 gauge. They both came out so well that I thought that I’d tackle my Ruger 10/22. Anybody who’s ever handled these rifles knows how bland the design is and how plain the wood is. So instead of just refinishing the stock I’m going to totally reshape it. I’ve been reading a lot about dyeing the wood instead of staining it. Dye will actually penetrate the wood and change its color, which enhances the grain. Stain on the other hand uses a much larger pigment that gets glued to the wood with a binder; this actually serves to cover the grain. I’m looking to give the gun a “black rifle” look while keeping the original wood stock; I have flash hiders and a fake suppressor that I can put on it. So the plan so far is that I’m going to try dyeing the wood black and enhance the grain with a very dark red. I plan on doing a lot of work so I thought that I’d take pictures along the way and share them here. First I'll post some pics of the gun prior to doing any work.









And here's a close up of my fake sound suppressor.

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On day 1 I stripped the old finish and started to do some filing.

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I wasn't happy with how slow it was going with the file, so I broke out the dremmel with the sanding drum. I reshaped the grip and added some figure to the grip cap area which changed the slope of the bottom edge of the butt. The top of the buttstock is very squared off so I rounded it off and I tapered the stock so it is now thinner at the bottom. If you took a cross section view of the buttstock as it comes from the factory it would be shaped like a 2x4, now it has a tear drop shape. One of the biggest helps so far is a sanding sponge. I found them at Wally World and they're made by 3M. It's basically just a foam sponge but the outside is covered with a layer of grit. They really do a good job of following the contours of the wood.

moose1915

that stock has some nice grain patterns, i'd have a hard time dyeing it anything but a nice rich mahogany... keep the pics coming!

elgallo114

I didn't notice the rifle. All I saw were the pink walls in your room!!

Just kidding! Looks like it's gonna be a rewarding project. Keep the updates coming. And let us know of any tips you have for the dying after you're done. I'm thinking of doing the same thing.

DC KNIVES

Cool project, I just did mine last January.My original stock had some dings , so I stripped mine.I then squared up the front, reshaped the tail stock and added a poplar handgrip.I filled all the dings and molded the area around the new handgrip with Bondo and then painted with Black texture paint.I am still making a light mount and a sling.Have fun thee are great little projects ,that can be done on a budget.Dave

Centaur 1

I'm not 100% on what color yet, I'm leaning towards the black because I have the fake suppressor, several different flash hiders and I machined the picatinny rail. The finishing technique that I read about, if done right should almost look like the stock was laminated. The plan is to do the final sanding using my hand instead of a sanding block. This should remove more wood from the softer parts of the grain. Then you dye the whole thing with the black dye, and after it's dry sand again using a sanding block. This should remove the dye from the harder sections of grain; the harder grain theoretically takes less dye than the softer grain, and because the final sanding was by hand the harder grain should be a little higher. Then I plan on mixing a dark red dye with some black dye so that it's very dark, then apply it to the stock. This way the grain that was sanded off will have a reddish tint that accents the grain. I'm going to finish it with danish oil which should help make the grain stand out. I plan on doing some test pieces and I also bought some green dye, so the final color combo is still up in the air.

statjunk

Definitely keep the pictures coming the project looks like it's coming along great.

Tom

uncle matt

Scrap the FAKE suppressor. Don't be a poseur.

The wood has some nice grain. IMO it would be a shame to not bring it out. I would just rub it with Linseed oil. The more times you rub it in and wipe it off the darker it gets. Once done, any little scratch can be touched up with a rag and some more oil.

A quart can will last half a lifetime.

skb2706

I agree the grain in that stock is too nice to cover up. Get yourself some Linspeed and put on about 12-15 coats per instructions. The bogus suppressor thing just gets in the way and serves no purpose. It takes a handy carbine and makes it a cumbersome awkward rifle.