Refinish Revolver Grips??

[IowaYank]

Hello. I am in the process of removing the polyurathane coat on my sharps and am going to refinish with linseed oil. I was wondering, should I do the same with my pistol grips?? Did they have linseed oil finishes too??

Thanks

[Fenianboy]

Dan, Over the years I've owned 3 1860 Armies, an 1849 marked City of Baltimore Police and an 1863 Remington.Two of the Armies(marked with cartouches) had plain oil finish.The other was a civilian piece made in 1867 that had beautifully grained highly varvished grips.The 1849 was varnished and the Remington which hasd both a cartouche and 1863 in pencil on the reverse of the grip was lightly varnished.in that this had a professional repair to the loading lever it may have been done later by a smith? Hope this helps a little. Bud Scully 13th NJ and 69th NY PS Merry Christmas

[Curt Schmidt]

Hallo!

In brief and to over-generalize...

Like longarms, military pistols had oiled grips.
However, many of the Italian repro's tend to have rosewood grips instead of American Black Walnut and appear as either a "rosy" hue or sometimes even "orangey" tint. Lightly staining them with a decent walnut stain before oiling them can help their visual image look more like walnut..

Curt