Once upon a time, there was a little old lady, a yard sale, and my father. After investing a few minutes' time and twenty-five bucks, Dad walked away with a Pre-'64 Winchester Model 94 carbine chambered for the venerable 30-30 Winchester cartridge.
The gun was mighty ugly because someone had stripped away most of the bluing some years before and had never refinished it. I was thrilled, because Dad already had a nice-looking 94 in 30-30, so I figured if I could scrape together $25 (not easy for me back then), I would have me a gun like Paw's.
Wrong.
Dad held onto that rifle like it was the last one on earth. It took me about a decade to swap him out of it, for a rifle that cost me a good bit more than $25. It was another six or eight years before I finally put a good finish on the gun, using Birchwood-Casey's new Perma Fin Air Cure Gun Finish.
Thus begins the story of that finish.
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