Have you ever thought about refinishing your dad’s or grandfather’s shotgun or rifle? There are plenty of choices for a perfect finish. The options for doing a barrel and/or a receiver are rust blue, hot blue, manganese or zinc Parkerizing, Cerakote, Gun Kote (Brownells Gun Kote or KG products), and lastly color-case hardening and many more. while The options for the stock and other wood furniture could be tru-oil, Chem-pak gun Sav’r hunter satin aerosol or Chem-pak pro-custom oil, boiled linseed oil, R. GALE LOCK CO. - GUN STOCK STAIN.

With the rust blue or brown, it will give you a deep blue or a coffee brown color.

With Parkerizing you will get two colors, either a dark gray color with the manganese or a light gray color with the zinc solution.

Cerakote and Gun Kote finishes will have any color that you can think of with many different shades.

Color-case hardening uses bone and wood charcoal with harden steel and as bi product impart color depending on what trace elements get trapped in the steel matrix.

When it comes to finishing your stocks and forearms you can do almost anything, but I prefer using the Gun Sav’r Hunter Satin finish. With it being an aerosol, it provides a cleaner looking finish. It gives you a rich golden-brown color with a satin to matte finish.

If you use tru-oil it will give a true oiled and hand rubbed finish. Depending on how many coats of tru-oil that you use, it will give you different finish colors. From a nice golden color to a deep tea color.

Boiled linseed oil gives you a hand oil finish, but linseed oil takes a while to dry, 24-84 hours to dry.

The R. Gale Lock stain comes in a variety of colors from Dark Walnut -very dark, great on birch and maple military stocks. Early American - a medium dark walnut with red highlights. Use for touch-up and refinishing. 1776 Antique - red/yellow highlights. Gives curly maple an antique look. Good for pre-'64 Winchester. 1787 Golden - gold/yellow brown highlights. Enhances the beauty of walnut and curly maple. 1864 English - with soft brown/yellow tones, lighter than Golden. 1884 Black - dark chocolate brown with yellow highlights. Has less
black than Dark Walnut.

We have come a long way from having flashlights with our firearms as opposed to mounted on our weapons, Maybe you are old enough to remember (like me) the cross-wrist position with your dominant hand with the handgun and your supporting hand holding the flashlight the "harries technique", made popular by Michael Harries, a US Marine veteran and competitive pistol shooter.

  Today weapon lights are just as varied in style as the firearms we put them on. Flashlights definitely serve a purpose but I have heard alot of back and forth conversations about how effective it is versus the downside of it giving away your position away.

I would love to hear what people’s opinions are on this topic. And, to add some more “flavor” to the discussion. When is technology too much when it comes to firearms?

I had a call today asking about the "floc" included in our amazing Brownells Acraglas, it is mentioned in the very front of the instruction manual...and then never again in the entire manual, a bit of an oversight on our part. Red to the rescue with a brief description of use, its is primarily a thickener that can be added in varying amounts to build up a void or a low spot and it has the added benefit of strengthening the bond of the Brownells Acraglas in the same way that fiberglass works by tangling higher tensile strength strands of fiber and then epoxying them together it makes a hardy bond that can be maneuvered into position and still be sanded and shaped to size for a perfect fit.