CVA Mountain Rifle Stock Stain

[fishmusic]

The attached is a picture of my CVA Mountain Rifle Stock (before carving and sanding to shape). I am now at the point of final sanding but I want to know what to stain it with. The wood is beech and I want a dark stain but I don't want to obscure the figure. Any suggestions? I am thinking of using something similar to Duelist's GPR stock.

 

[Smokey Plainsman]

I'd use some Fiebings dark brown leather dye then finish with a number of coats of Birchwood Casey Tru-Oil, let that cure, knock it down with some pumice powder to a satin sheen, and seal with some quality paste wax.

 

[swathdiver]

The wood is beech

Are you sure? Most were maple, some were beech and some were walnut. If memory serves, beech doesn't have much figure and that stock has it in abundance.

Either way, I like Laurel Mountain Forge stains myself. Also like Aqua Fortis, beeswax and the Fiebings is a good recommendation too.

Enjoy and please post more photos of your project.

 

[Trot]

I think CVA marketed them as "hardwood stock". All the ones I had appeared to be birch.

 

[rafterob]

Only the early "Made in USA" Mountain Rifles had a Maple stock. All the other Spanish made versions have the beech stock. Some have unique grain patterns and many are fairly plain. The beech is hard to take a stain and the suggestion to use Feibings leather stain is a good one. Do me a favor though, and smooth out that groove under the cheekpiece. Some of the stocks had that and it bothers the manure out of me.
Here is a link to an old post of mine showing some incredible Birch curl on a pistol I put together. Traditions Kentucky Pistol

 

[swathdiver]

Only the early "Made in USA" Mountain Rifles had a Maple stock. All the other Spanish made versions have the beech stock.

This is not accurate. I have several MRs which were made in Spain (circa 1979) with gorgeous curly maple stocks.

1978-1979, 1981 MRs are advertised with "American Maple".
1982 and 1984 MRs advertised with "Select Hardwood".
1988 - "European Walnut" - Introduced as NEW
1990-91 - Premier Grade MR with "Fancy Grade Walnut"
1990-91 - Regular MR - "Select Hardwood"
1999 - "Fine Figured American Hard Maple"

Hope this helps to add to the CVA MR knowledge base.

 

[Zonie]

I'd say your lucky.

Every CVA muzzleloading rifle I have ever owned has had a beech wood stock.
Also, the 12 guage CVA double barrel shotgun I got from my neighbor also has a beech stock on it.

Beech is a blond hard wood that does not accept oil based stains very well.

Usually, the second coat of oil based stain barely soaks in so it doesn't darken the wood and any additional coats will do nothing.

The alcohol based stains on the other hand work very well although they always need additional coatings to get the wood to be dark.

An example of a walnut alcohol based stain on the CVA 12 guage stock looks like this.

 

[fishmusic]

Definitely not maple. I have a CVA maple stock and the difference is like night and day. I really need to identify the wood so I will take it to Woodcraft to see if they can identify it. Choice of stain will follow.

 

[rafterob]

Certainly adds to mine :hatsoff:

 

[bubba.50]

I'm no expert but, in the picture that certainly looks like maple to me. is it a Deer Creek stock by any chance?

 

[dragnetbill]

I am also working on a CVA MR from a kit that had a product registration card stamp dated March 1977. My stock looked a lot like yours and although it had some characteristics of Beech I found the wood to "work" a little harder than the Beech CVA Kentucky's I've worked on. There is a sticker on my kits packaging that says American Maple.

 

[rafterob]

You can see, if you look at the other pictures linked to this one, the tale-tell birch swirls at the top of the comb, underneath the lock panel and some at the very fore-end.

 

[don hepler]

I have finished a lot of hardwood stocks, not muzzleloaders, however. I would put a sealer on the wood before staining. It will prevent a splotchy look. Next I would mix a little dark walnut and maple to a medium color. Try it on scrap wood. Stain to desired look. Then using cheese cloth apply a couple coats of Tru-Oil. Just thin coats. Let it sit over night and spray a light mist of Min-Wax Poly, either satin or semi-gloss. No sanding between coats. As simple as you can get. I do not use this on custom maple stocks with heavy curl but it works on the wood that you are dealing with.

 

[Zonie]

Sounds like a good finish for a book case.

:hmm: :grin:

PS: I want to stain the wood, not paint it so for me, using any kind of "sealer" before staining is out of the question.

 

[don hepler]

Min-Wax makes a wood conditioner, just for the purpose of preventing the splotchy look, associated with these types of wood. It is not a "finish sealer" it is a "wood conditioner". My bad.

I tried to emphasize that this is not for nice walnut, curly maple and those types of wood. The wood on that rifle "is" similar to a book case.

Those types of wood used on lower priced stocks, have a lot of circular grain showing, and it is visible on this stock. It will be even more visible if a med. to dark stain is used. Maybe not so much with a light stain.

I also mentioned trying it on some scrap wood.

I have used the described method on modern guns, with great success and they did not look like book cases.

Disregard my recommendation, and you'll likely see a book shelf "look".

I looked it up and it did say conditioner, (not Sealer). sorry for the mistake.