In the late 1920's, Springfield Armory stopped using Logwood Stain, in an economy move. This changed the appearance of the wood on U.S. Military Arms.

Possibly, 'AFJuvat' has a later 1903 Springfield stock in his photo.

FWIW - I had luck getting a good color match with a new walnut forearm that I spliced to a 'cut-down' original Krag stock.

I put a dark walnut stain on the raw walnut wood and quickly followed that with a "Rosewood" stain. It approximated the original wood color.
(Getting the same finish 'sheen', as the original wood, is trickier and a different issue).

I do not know if your original stock can take a 'stain' at this point. There may be 'oils' in the wood that would inhibit the stock from accepting a stain.

Your call. You can test with some stain in a hidden area like the barrel channel.

Attached: 'Before' and 'After' Staining a replacement forearm.

If you have found a decent rifle but it just doesn't have that reddish hue I would be hesitant to walk away, good rifles are hard to find at reasonable prices with good mechanics.
Heres some pics of a shooter with plenty of dirt and oil way deep in the stock,

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patched up scraped and washed out some,

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put back together,

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and getting checked out,

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It seems to have a little red from just having some flax seed oil rubbed into it maybe it will get darker with use and time or it was made a little too clean before getting re-oiled, not sure.

for the record, and at the risk of repeating myself, the finish on the Krag stocks was more than a dunk in linseed oil. It is covered on page 139 or 143 in Joe Farmers book, IIRC.

I have found Analine "walnut" die to be a perfect match with the exception of one rifle that has an Italian Walnut stock. I messed that one up and as a result it will probably be with me till I cash in my chips.

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Don't let 5's glib manner fool you, the book is invaluable if you have the least interest in Krags. Joe can be frank and direct but what he does not know about Krags is not yet known and that's a fact.

'fourbore' - Springfield Armory used approximately 30,000 Italian walnut stock blanks, due to a shortage of cured American black walnut blanks.

From my experience, the Italian wood will usually have 1899, 1900, or 1901 cartouche dates.

The Italian wood is often easy to spot because of its light 'golden' color and distinctive wood grain.

Sometimes, the Italian stocks were darkened with stain, to better match the darker American walnut stocks in a military unit.

In regard to faint cartouche stamps, this may be an indication a stock was skillfully 'scraped' during Armory rifle rebuild/refurbish work.

Attached photos of Italian wood showing:
color, grain, 'tiger stripe' and a distinctive 'crescent' pattern, that is often seen.
Last pictures show an Italian stock with an American walnut hand-guard; this stock has a pronounced 'tiger stripe' and was darkened with stain, long ago.

(p.s. - Mark_Duaite has done some very nice Krag stock restorations. Possibly, his Italian stock 'stain problem' was a forearm-splice using a different walnut species)?

Butlers is correct, first, it was a different species of wood, second I was not paying attention to colors. I could have pulled it off had I been paying more attention and been less cocky.

fourbore wrote on Jun 11^th, 2019 at 10:54am:


It's not that hard, just use patience and knowledge and friends with skills.