So I'd like to refinish the wood on a 1984 No. 1 RSI

This 1984 No. 1 RSI in .243 Winchester shoots great and has good wood under a factory finish in excellent condition:







Am I crazy to want to strip the factory finish and put on hand rubbed oil?

What will take the finish off the wood of a 1984 No. 1

No you aren't crazy! It does look good though. I too prefer a hand rubbed oil finish.

As long as you realize that to most people, removing the factory finish and refinishing a stock decreases the value of the gun significantly.

I would not on a gun that nice. It's going to be hard to improve on the finish it has now. It will not look right unless professionally done by a master.
If you were an expert on refinishing rifle stocks,you would have not asked, you would have already done it. If you are not an expert or have one in the family, you will regret ever messing with it.

Chuck 100 yd said:

I would not on a gun that nice. It's going to be hard to improve on the finish it has now. It will not look right unless professionally done by a master.
If you were an expert on refinishing rifle stocks,you would have not asked, you would have already done it. If you are not an expert or have one in the family, you will regret ever messing with it.

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You are right

It is what it is and if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Perhaps I will someday find a beat up specimen

bushmaster1313 said:

Am I crazy to want to strip the factory finish and put on hand rubbed oil?

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NO you are not crazy, I have had excellent success refinishing stocks.
I like Birchwood Casey Tru Oil & Steel wool, cleanliness is your friend.

Half the fun of firearms is making them your own. ps

Wood is wood, whether it's a gun stock or a piece of furniture. You want to heed the Medical creed when contemplating refinishing: "First, do no harm." Why do what amounts to a skin transplant, with great potential for subsequent complications, when it's not called for?

In this instance, I would not attempt refinishing on the gun, since it appears there is no actual damage. However, you could use a a good quality wood cleaner to remove grime, sweat stain, wax, etc. Formbys makes such a product that will not soften or otherwise damage a perfectly good finish. https://www.formbys.com/products/buildup_remover/

The only "problem" with the finish on this gun is that it looks and feels like a 1984 Ruger factory finish.

I guess they had some sort of urethane factory dip.

I have refinished a number of stocks, it requires a lot of work, time, and skill to do it right:

bushmaster1313 said:

The only "problem" with the finish on this gun is that it looks and feels like a 1984 Ruger factory finish.

I guess they had some sort of urethane factory dip.

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I doubt it's a urethane. Probably an epoxy finish, and likely sprayed on. Very tough stuff to remove without sanding down to bare wood, since the finish would have penetrated the wood pores. I'd also not recommend any of the usual hardware store liquid strippers, since it's not uncommon for them to create more problems than they solve, by softening the wood and/or causing the liquefied finish to penetrate even deeper into the wood. Sometimes the best way to remove a stubborn finish is by scraping as much as possible off, followed by as little sanding as necessary. But scraping at this level requires some specialized scrapers and more than a little skill to avoid damage. You can get an idea of the tools you'd need here: http://www.woodcraft.com/search2/search.aspx?query=scrapers

I use Strip-eze to get the finish off with synthetic steel wool. Some light sanding then stain followed by tru-oil. It is a lot of work to make it look right and I would not do it on a stock that looks that nice. Then again it's your gun and an oil finish is definitely nicer.