I have been looking for quite some time for an affordable 12g American made SXS and found one today. I bought a Stevens 311A with 28inch barrels full and mod chokes. It has case coloured receiver and looks like new other than 1 scratch on one barrel. I think I got a bargain at $199 considering after about 3 hrs cleaning it is mint.  Just wondering, it has birch stock and forend and is very light colored. I am thinking about refinishing it with Caseys walnut stain and tru oil hand rubbed. Any thoughts or tips you want to send my way would be appreciated.

 

Brady

 

P.S. Can't wait to try it.

I'm sorry I can't help you on your question, but can you post a pic? I'd love to see your gun. Congrats on your purchase too. It sounds like a real good find. Especially at that price.

How do you post a picture? I am not up on technology????

Brady

Congrats on your new gun Brady. I would get some blue repair and fix that scratch it will rust in time. On your stock, that is a chore and a half. You have to start with bare wood. or nothing will stay on it. Make sure it is totally free of dust and such stuff before starting. You will have to use some sort of sticky tape to get it really clean. I wrapped my hand in freezer/packaging tape to clean mine. Before you even start this, you should have a dust free room, cabinet or something to do this in. Or every time you rub it down down between coats to remove most of the dust humps, you remove a lot of Tru-Oil or what ever you are working with. The best thing is to get about 4-6 coats on the wood, nice and hard. It takes about 24 hours to get one coat really dry and hard. Then you rub it down coats of Tru-Oil with a powder called "Rotten Stone". That will make it real glossy for you. The more you rub the higher the gloss gets..........Bob

Thanks for the info Bob I will post before and after photos.

 

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

 

Brady

If you have ever seen a Russian Baikal before Remington took over, they looked really terrible. I did one of them it was an O/U 20 gauge. It turned out so good, the guys at the gun club thought I had gotten a new expensive shotgun.............Bob

They used to have a tutorial on how to do it. I'm in the same boat as you. I'll see if maybe I can't get the attention of someone in admin or maybe someone else can help out.

That would be great. I hope to start it after the holidays.

 

Brady 

  Good luck with your project.  I bought the same gun in 20ga in the late 70's for $70 from the hardware store I worked at!   I too wanted a darker stock and found birch is very hard, tight grained and hard to stain.   Don't get your hopes up trying to get it to look like walnut with traditional wood stains, unless you find something like a wood dye. 

  I decided to get a new replacement walnut stock with an english straight grip with a splinter fore-end.  The stock is for a 511 and needs lots of inletting and finishing.  The fore-end is basicly just a square block.  It is still on my to-do list..................

dukntz, welcome to the forum. You're right, Birch is a hard wood, but you have to be careful when using a dark stain on it to not get "pin holing". Birch has a tendency to have small little "dots" that won't take a dark stain. When you finish it can look like someone took a pin and punched a hole through the stain to the light wood beneath. Maple will take a stain much better. Probably not an issue as you are trying to work out the Walnut from the 511. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

Thanx for the info, I may look for a replacement as well. The gun is mint and the case colouring is beautiful. It may in fact deserve a new piece of wood.

 

Brady

Nice gun for a great price the 311 were some of the last nice guns from Steven's!