Mustangs Rule
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2021
- Messages
- 1,189
Oiling the walnut stock on my Pre-64 Model 70, 270
No need to oil anything, goes unmet by me
It is so satisfying for me to apply and rub in oil on my objects made of wood and leather.
I use boiled linseed oil on the handles of my pitchforks, scythes, axes, hatchets, hammers, splitting mauls and even the wood frame of my huge old wheelbarrow. I even oil my short and long homemade wooden shooting sticks.
Every fall after doing my building projects I clean my wooden levels and wipe them down and apply a coat of boiled lineseed oil. I have two favorite levels. One is two feet long and made out of cherry wood. Cherry is so cheery.
The other is a large walnut and brass edged “Peerless” brand level, made in Walnut, Illinois 61376. They are long out of business with levels now being made in steel, then aluminum, and now plastic.
A wooden level is so warm to my bare hands in the winter.
I do cheat when applying Neatsfoot oil to my hunting boots and cowboy boots, saddles and tack. I use a spray bottle then rub the oil in.
I hand apply a protective oil to my little house on the prairie, hay barn and horse barn. It allows the wood to age naturally. The wood for the siding came from a small local sawmill cutting native lumber. The wood tone changes beautifully with time.
I oil the knife sheaths, which I make from harness grade leather and sew together with thin copper wire, and take great pleasure in oiling a custom rifle scabbard I had a saddle maker make. The space for scope is low intentionally. Big modern rifle scopes would never fit and i have no interest in them.
Of all the things I like to oil the most however, nothing is as pleasurable as my standard grade Model 70 Winchester in .270.
I bought it used in a pawn shop in Cheyenne, Wyoming forty years ago. A widow brought it in to sell. It belonged to her Cowboy husband who bought it brand new when he came back from the Korean War and they got married. It was his only ever rifle.
Sometimes a stock finish can get worn down "just perfectly" by time, sun, handling and going in and out of a saddle scabbard for decades. No abuse, just lots of honest even romantic use. The gun metal and scope can get obviously saddle scabbard worn too.
Since leaving my desert mountain home of 28 years to live and hunt in the PNW, I have bought a rainy-day rifle. It is a Sako Stainless Synthetic Finnlight in 308.
When the sun shines however, which is most of the season here, I like being afield with my old model 70. There is something so “young making” for my rifle and me too, to put it on a table I made myself, in warm sun, and see it’s old stock look so new and sparkling again as I rub on the oil and see it being absorbed deep into that beautiful American walnut grain.
No need to oil anything, goes unmet by me
It is so satisfying for me to apply and rub in oil on my objects made of wood and leather.
I use boiled linseed oil on the handles of my pitchforks, scythes, axes, hatchets, hammers, splitting mauls and even the wood frame of my huge old wheelbarrow. I even oil my short and long homemade wooden shooting sticks.
Every fall after doing my building projects I clean my wooden levels and wipe them down and apply a coat of boiled lineseed oil. I have two favorite levels. One is two feet long and made out of cherry wood. Cherry is so cheery.
The other is a large walnut and brass edged “Peerless” brand level, made in Walnut, Illinois 61376. They are long out of business with levels now being made in steel, then aluminum, and now plastic.
A wooden level is so warm to my bare hands in the winter.
I do cheat when applying Neatsfoot oil to my hunting boots and cowboy boots, saddles and tack. I use a spray bottle then rub the oil in.
I hand apply a protective oil to my little house on the prairie, hay barn and horse barn. It allows the wood to age naturally. The wood for the siding came from a small local sawmill cutting native lumber. The wood tone changes beautifully with time.
I oil the knife sheaths, which I make from harness grade leather and sew together with thin copper wire, and take great pleasure in oiling a custom rifle scabbard I had a saddle maker make. The space for scope is low intentionally. Big modern rifle scopes would never fit and i have no interest in them.
Of all the things I like to oil the most however, nothing is as pleasurable as my standard grade Model 70 Winchester in .270.
I bought it used in a pawn shop in Cheyenne, Wyoming forty years ago. A widow brought it in to sell. It belonged to her Cowboy husband who bought it brand new when he came back from the Korean War and they got married. It was his only ever rifle.
Sometimes a stock finish can get worn down "just perfectly" by time, sun, handling and going in and out of a saddle scabbard for decades. No abuse, just lots of honest even romantic use. The gun metal and scope can get obviously saddle scabbard worn too.
Since leaving my desert mountain home of 28 years to live and hunt in the PNW, I have bought a rainy-day rifle. It is a Sako Stainless Synthetic Finnlight in 308.
When the sun shines however, which is most of the season here, I like being afield with my old model 70. There is something so “young making” for my rifle and me too, to put it on a table I made myself, in warm sun, and see it’s old stock look so new and sparkling again as I rub on the oil and see it being absorbed deep into that beautiful American walnut grain.
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