doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Why weren't old doubles sealed inside?

Don't write these products off as ineffective just because they are not high-tech. There are thousands of gunstocks that have survived many decades use and still have the surviving original finishes. They seal against the elements pretty darned good, I'd say, when properly applied.

As long as we desire beauty in a gunstock we will put up with the vagaries and "drawbacks" of wood. It's a trade off, one that I'm willing to make. There are millions of synthetic stocked guns for the buying, if one wants stocks that are trouble free, and basically maintenance free. I will continue to use my shellac to seal new inletting. It seems to last just fine, to me. I have one M/L rifle that was built by a dear departed friend in the 1950s. It's lock inlet was sealed with shellac, and I pulled the lock recently and it looked just fine. No signs of flaking or deterioration. The last m/l I built was about 1995, and it looks like new inside the lock inlet, with no deterioration of the sealing shellac. And, for the record, these m/l rifles are not kept in a climate controlled environment. No heat, no a/c, no humidity control. They don't get rained on, but that's about it.

Twenty three years after sealing with shellac......



SRH

That told me!

Perhaps it has something to do with the type of gun and intent of its use. In the 90's I was designing and having built benchrest standard varmint rifles with wooden stocks (good synthetic stocks were still in the future). The importance of controlling the harmonics of the action and barrel were just beginning to be understood and with it came glass bedding, pillar bedding, aluminum blocks and as part of the accurizing process, sealing the wood to prevent any swelling or warping. That included the inside of the action, barrel channel and under the butt plate along with all other exposed parts.


A 100 years ago shotguns, as they are today, are not accurate instruments and I expect it was more important to allow the wood to breath in the various conditions it was exposed to to prevent it from over drying or rotting and resultant splits and cracks.