butlersrangers wrote on Nov 15^th, 2017 at 10:09pm:

'AFJuvat' - William S. Brophy noted the discontinuing of Logwood Stain in his work, "The Springfield 1903 Rifles", on page 57. FWIW - This makes sense to me and explains U.S. gunstock coloring I have observed from different eras. (I have not personally verified Brophy's research).

Thank you!

That would explain why many of the older stocks had a richer shade of reddish brown than the WWII era stocks.  Most contemporary sources, and even the CMP do not mention the use of a stain.

I am going to have to do some research and see if that stain is still available.

EDIT:  Found a source for logwood extract.  It looks like it was a rather involved process to make the stain.

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