86Win said
Mark, crazy as it sounds I understood that Winchester made stain from walnuts, I was given a model 58 that my friend had started working on including a cracked stock (naturally). A couple of years ago I crushed walnuts from our woods and made stain. I then steel wooled the stock and glued the crack, which didn’t work too well. I stained the stock which has some heartwood on the butt. I buffed it with the palm of my hand and applied about 3 coats o LinSpeed, again hand buffed,which I have used for many years. I love the finish it gives. I think it came out beautiful (to my old eyes) I have occasionally added some of my wifes red cake coloring to create a little more red for an old Winchester stock. I’m happy, Don  

Thanks for the tip Don.  I, too, have read somewhere about using walnuts or walnut shells to stain gunstocks.  I’ll add that to the list.  If nothing else, I’m getting quite a collection of stains and finishes from the trial and error method I’ve been using on this project.  Mark