Old Ugly has been my work-in-progress for 20 years. She's a 1916 Spanish Mauser .308. Thru the years she's been transformed into a "Scout" rifle by cutting and recrowning the barrel, cutting and rasping the stock to a more svelte profile, and installing a hand-filed forward scope mount. Her latest facelift involved spraying the once flat black stock with a "Stone Finish" spray paint. Didnt really help her looks all that much, but...

Beauty is as Beauty does! My handloads of a 180 gr. spire point over 42 gr. of IMR4064 run about 2500 fps, group 5 shots into 1.5" at 100 yards, and slay deer with great aplomb -- nearly 2 dozen to her credit so far! She has cost me $59.95 and many, many pleasant hours of work.

Old Ugly has been my work-in-progress for 20 years. She's a 1916 Spanish Mauser .308. Thru the years she's been transformed into a "Scout" rifle by cutting and recrowning the barrel, cutting and rasping the stock to a more svelte profile, and installing a hand-filed forward scope mount. Her latest facelift involved spraying the once flat black stock with a "Stone Finish" spray paint. Didnt really help her looks all that much, but...

Beauty is as Beauty does! My handloads of a 180 gr. spire point over 42 gr. of IMR4064 run about 2500 fps, group 5 shots into 1.5" at 100 yards, and slay deer with great aplomb -- nearly 2 dozen to her credit so far! She has cost me $59.95 and many, many pleasant hours of work.

Looks like your stone finsh came out real well, Might even consider the finish for one of my old stocks. I have an old M94 Swede stock that had a shoe polish can inletted into the side of the butstock by the previos owner. Couldn't find any wood that came close to matching, and so it wears some patches of a lighter color. Your idea would cover it up, and could make quite a nice looking stock.

Lee L.

Can't beat the price, can you? Good job! :D

Looks like your stone finsh came out real well, Might even consider the finish for one of my old stocks. I have an old M94 Swede stock that had a shoe polish can inletted into the side of the butstock by the previos owner. Couldn't find any wood that came close to matching, and so it wears some patches of a lighter color. Your idea would cover it up, and could make quite a nice looking stock.

Lee L.

Lee, I'll tell you -- this paint will cover up danged near any flaw. Regular paint just seemed to accent all the poorly-sanded rasp marks and the epoxy putty I used to build up the comb just a bit and form the very slight schnabel forend. This stuff obliterated all the bumps, lumps, and scrapes, and the texture gives a good, overall non-slip grip that is coarse enough but not so coarse that it rubs your cheek raw.I'll be interested to see how durable it is, and it shouldn't take long to see -- this is my rough-duty rifle and sees lots of bangin' around.

Can't beat the price, can you? Good job! :D


Not hardly! Of course, I have spent a bit more on it. I think the recoil pad was picked up at a going-out-of-business sale for $5. The scope was given to me by a buddy who had bought it for a handgun and then found he didn't like scoped handguns, but the rings set me back a few bucks -- very few, I bought them used off a gunshow table. I do believe I paid retail for the QD sling swivels, but the sling was free. Other than the original $59.95 price, I've probably spent more on paint than anything else -- maybe $15 total thru a couple of paintings.

A good friend of mine, lamentably now passed on, loved his beautiful high-dollar rifles and scoffed at this poor specimen. Hunting together one morning, I had killed 2 deer while he had missed one. After loading my deer into the truck, he began his usual ragging about my rifle.

"Carrying something like that tells everyone you have absolutely no pride of ownership!", he said.

"Well, look at it this way" says I, "I'll be eating some bacon-wrapped loin while you're swallowing your pride of ownership!"

Pisgah,

What brand of spray on stone finish did you use? I am very interested to do the same with an old brit .303...thanks!!!

Pisgah,

What brand of spray on stone finish did you use? I am very interested to do the same with an old brit .303...thanks!!!


I believe it is PlastiKote. Got it at WalMart.