I just received my new Veteran compact yesterday from Charlie at Georgia Airguns. When I originally ordered the rifle, I had asked Charlie to please see if his distributor would look over a few and send me the one with the best wood grain. I also like to do woodworking as a hobby and am very familiar with beech so I wasn’t expecting much given the typical wood grain that beech has. I was pleasantly surprised when I opened the box and looked it over. The beech looked to be quarter sawn with many nice ray flakes in the wood. The only thing I didn’t care for was the matte finish on the stock that didn’t allow the grain to pop at let you easily see just how nice it was. I have polished several pieces of furniture I have built for others that wanted an extremely glossy finish so I was familiar with the process. I used my Porter Cable orbital polisher with a white Lake Country brand foam polishing pad. For the compound I chose to use Chemical Guys V38 Final Polish because I have had good results with it before and this polish doesn’t have much cut to it. I then removed the stock from the action and went to work. After one complete pass I decided to give it another one to make it really pop. I was then happy with the results from the polish so I gave it two good coats of Johnson paste wax to give it some protection and make it easier to grip. After waxing the stock isn’t slick and actually is easier to grip than it originally was out of the box. I realize some might not be a fan of a glossy finish and I do actually prefer matte myself. It was just too nice of a piece of beech to go hidden under that dull finish and I thought it deserved to stand out. The pics below show the process, the first one is how it looked when I removed it from the action. The next picture is after the first polish and the rest are after the final polish and wax had been applied. If anyone is interested in doing this yourself and have questions I will be happy to help.
