I can believe that it takes 1000 coats and that is why these high end guns take a year to make. I like the Syracuse L.C. Smith's and the early Fulton ones before 1912 and have read from an article that the higher graded guns were oil finished and took as many coats as needed to bring out the high lite of the grain. In some of the records it states when gun was started and when finished and many times it was close to a year.

David