Rossi 92 stocks.....

[Hankster]

What's with the "cheesy" orange colored finish on the stocks?? I'm waiting for my new sights to show, so I pulled the wood, stripped em, and there is good Walnut under that "stuff" finish!! What the heck??? Cover good wood with that junk finish? Criminal!!! Drying tonight.. will shape,sand the forearm top proper "Winchester" shape.... then oil finish!! Sights ought to show Tuesday....then to the range, FINALLY!! Whew!

[olyinaz]

Pictures are mandatory!!

Oly

[gak]

I have often wondered too. What is your specific distributor/era? I'm surprised you uncovered actual walnut, Other than some retailers listing walnut--I think improperly--it was my impression the Navy Arms Rossis (90s to 2006) were the only ones to legitimately claim such. All others have supposefly have been Brazilian/South American wood of some mostly-unnamed variety.

The really bad period was the late Interarms era where they inexplicably covered up nice wood (sometimes) with a dark--almost black mystery wood.stain.

Did you also recontour the bottom front part of the forearm to original Winchester look (more rounded "up")? Yes - pics please! And congratulations on your "new" wood!

[Griff]

While I don't care for the particular "shade" of these stocks... I like the pattern. Kinda afraid to strip off the current finish in case the pattern is part of finish, not the wood!!!



And, yes, pics ARE required!!!

[Mutt]

I like the looks of that rifle just the way it is . Maybe it's the picture , but the color and all appear great

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Mutt

[jlchucker]

The short rifle in the pic looks nice. Is it an EMF Hartford? It can't be a Braztech Rossi--my Braztech Rossi has a stock and forearm with the shade and texture of the old hardwood stocked Winchester Rangers of the 1990's--in short, figureless.

[Hankster]

Gak.. you were right!! It was late at night.... anyway, the wood had a walnut grain to it, but the stripper didn't pull whatever STAIN they used, in the shed, late at night it looked walnut! Got the big surprise when I started sanding the "square edges" to the more "proper" contours... wood went "white" fast! OWW!! So... sanding em to correct shape.. re-stain.. then oil... oh well, we sometimes learn the hard way!! LOL!! But, it's still going to look "better than factory"!! No sights yet.. Holiday has Post Office WAY behind I guess.....

[gak]

Gak.. you were right!! It was late at night.... anyway, the wood had a walnut grain to it, but the stripper didn't pull whatever STAIN they used, in the shed, late at night it looked walnut! Got the big surprise when I started sanding the "square edges" to the more "proper" contours... wood went "white" fast! OWW!! So... sanding em to correct shape.. re-stain.. then oil... oh well, we sometimes learn the hard way!! LOL!! But, it's still going to look "better than factory"!! No sights yet.. Holiday has Post Office WAY behind I guess.....

Hankster, I was hoping you'd stumbled upon an odd one...but sounds like it still will be nice! The squaring off of the front has really bugged me all along (early Rossis were better, some close to original Wins along with longer "nose" wood closer to the Wins)...but not enough to recontour, requiring a refinish of "ok" looking wood (most of mine, thankfully, aren't the orange wood)....at least until now! You've inspired to a) refinish/recontour at least one and b) get some Precision gen-u-wine walnut on another (my best example).

[olyinaz]

I agree on the squared off contours - not pleasing at all. I've re-done the wood on all of my Rossi 92s as a result but what still gets me is how every Rossi 92 carbine that I look at (including mine) has an ill fitted butt plate. If they're ALL going to be a 32nd or so too long why not just make the dang butt plate smaller?

I've not gotten around to to properly fitting mine to the wood because ten thousand things keep getting in the way but that's the other part of Rossi 92 stock work in my view - properly fitting the butt plate.

Best,
Oly

[salvo]

Here is how my Rossi's stock turned out after stripping and re-finishing. Had a lot of figuring that you could not even tell it was there before.
Looking forward to seeing yours Hankster.

[Griff]

I've heard it's actually "Brazilian Mystery Hardwood." And what "squared-off" are you refering to? Pics, please.

Yes, my "short rifle" is an EMF Hartford.

[Nate Kiowa Jones]

I agree on the squared off contours - not pleasing at all. I've re-done the wood on all of my Rossi 92s as a result but what still gets me is how every Rossi 92 carbine that I look at (including mine) has an ill fitted butt plate. If they're ALL going to be a 32nd or so too long why not just make the dang butt plate smaller?

I've not gotten around to to properly fitting mine to the wood because ten thousand things keep getting in the way but that's the other part of Rossi 92 stock work in my view - properly fitting the butt plate.

Best,
Oly

The only Rossi 92 that had Walnut was the guns imported by Navy Arms (late 90's to mid 2000's). The reason you see the butt-plates protruding past the wood is because the wood was not fully dried when Rossi did it. The way they do those is to bolt on the plate then sand/shape both the wood and the plate. Then as the wood dries it shrinks.
The finish they use is an oil/stain mix.
The best improvement Rossi has made in the last 7 or 8 years is the wood. The forend and butstock match much better than the older guns. Before about 2000 Rossi didn't bother to match the wood they just stained them really dark. I can't tell you how many folks have called me looking for a lighter or darker, a browner or redder wood because when they stripped the the black off the wood they didn't come anywhere near matching.
I think the best thing to do with the Brazilian Mystery wood is to Tru-oil it.

This is one of the older Rossi's. It was stained dark by Rossi and once I stripped it the butstock was red with some dark streaks and the forwood was Blondie with no streaks. for the streaks on the fore-wood I used a sharpie and smeared it. Then i mixed some ox blood leather dye with some Tru-oil to make it red like the butstock. Once it was a close match I just used Tru-oil.

[olyinaz]

Those both look great guys. Very nice!

Oly

[gak]

I've heard it's actually "Brazilian Mystery Hardwood." And what "squared-off" are you refering to? Pics, please.

Yes, my "short rifle" is an EMF Hartford.

-----
The "squared off" aspect refers to later-era Rossi 20" round barreled carbines and trappers, which are left more straight/rough-sawn. Even my otherwise nice EMFs are pretty abrupt. The original (Pre War) Wins 92s (and 94 SRCs) were finished off better, rounded (radiused) up from the bottom front edge to the ammo tube. The smaller 92 calibers (.25-20 and .32-20) were even more pronounced, apparently 'cause the smaller diameter ammo tube meant a longer transition distance from the bottom of the wood, depicted pretty well here: (LATER EDIT)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... 2_1483.jpg

I was looking for a shot of a very early Rossi (even before the "black" mystery wood stain)--I'd take a shot if one of mine but I'm away from them at the moment--so I found this. This shot is too far away to optimally depict the rounding, but this does show the nice long(er)-wood forend--also closer to the originals--than a lot of later Rossis.
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b66/z ... ossi92.jpg
By comparison, a later "squared off" Rossi:
http://www.lipseys.com/eImages/Rossi%20 ... %20BBL.JPG

NKJ is right that the later Rossis were cosmetically vastly improved from the earlier days of dark stain/mystery wood (that characterized the later Interarms years). Some forget or don't know, however, that the very early Rossi/Interarms years didn't have that odd effect--or nearly the incidences of mismatched front and rear wood. Not saying it was premium-grade wood, but it was at least "unremarkable" to the good, with occasionally very nice wood.

[Griff]

I've heard it's actually "Brazilian Mystery Hardwood." And what "squared-off" are you refering to? Pics, please.
Yes, my "short rifle" is an EMF Hartford.

The "squared off" aspect refers to later-era Rossi 20" round barreled carbines and trappers, which are left more straight/rough-sawn. Even my otherwise nice EMFs are pretty abrupt. The original (Pre War) Wins 92s (and 94 SRCs) were finished off better, rounded (radiused) up from the bottom front edge to the ammo tube. The smaller 92 calibers (.25-20 and .32-20) were even more pronounced, apparently 'cause the smaller diameter ammo tube meant a longer transition distance from the bottom of the wood.
I was looking for a shot of a very early Rossi (even before the "black" mystery wood stain)--I'd take a shot if one of mine but I'm away from them at the moment--so I found this. This shot is too far away to optimally depict the rounding, but this does show the nice long(er)-wood forend--also closer to the originals--than a lot of later Rossis.
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b66/z ... ossi92.jpg
By comparison, a later "squared off" Rossi:
http://www.lipseys.com/eImages/Rossi%20 ... %20BBL.JPG

Thought you might have been talking about the top of the comb.

[Hagler]

Hankster,

The previous owner of my Rossi/ EMF 92 stipped the black junk off of the wood, and Tru-Oiled it:



















The natural color ranges from a light, golden honey-to- a rich, medium brown, depending on lighting conditions & angle of view. ...with lots of figure, too...

Shawn