When I was 14, my dad bought me a Mossberg 500CT pump shotgun for Christmas. The C denotes 20ga and the T indicates a less fancy model that was sold through department stores. My Dad bought it in 1981 from Two Guys dept store in Henrietta NY. The company went out of business that same year. The funny thing is that according to the serial number, the gun was made in 1975. So it was in the store inventory for a while. Out of the box, the gun had a birch stock and fore grip. Stained tan with a thin finish and a plastic butt. It was a plain looking gun when he bought it, but he wanted to dress it up nice for me. So he stripped the finish, applied an automotive racing stripe tape just in front of the new rubber butt pad he put on. The tape was to simulate the fancy white line spacers that more expensive guns had. Then he painstakingly applied many coats of polyurethane to build it to a thick glossy finish that was popular in the 80’s. The finish was spotless, drip free and perfect. I loved the look of the gun and was proud of the work he had put into it. I shot trap with it a bit when I was in high school, then life moved on. I did not really do anything with the gun for 38 years. Then my son and I started shooting clays together in 2024 my interest re-awakened.
My Mossberg 500 CT from 1975.
Glossy, but yellowed, The recoil pad no longer had any give to it. Time has turned squishy rubber to rock.
I was a bit afraid of the trouble I might have refinishing the grooves.
The finish was still shiny, but the poly now had a yellow hue to it and was starting to flake off the white line tape. The other problem is a plastic covered gun shooting in Florida just leads to sweaty hands. I was torn between preserving the finish my Dad had put love into, or refinishing it to get an oil finish on it. I hemmed and hawed… A LOT. The rubber recoil pad was no longer soft, and was starting to deteriorate. It was time to breathe some new life into the woodwork.
The whiteline that once gave the stock a little class, now revealed that the polyurethane had yellowed.
Mystery solved, the recoil pad’s screws came out hard because my dad had glued them in.
I used a card scraper to remove the finish. Due to its thickness, it took a while. I cursed at the poly, but not my Dad ;). I kept working the finish off until it was down to bare wood.
Polyurethane is a pretty durable finish for a gun stock, but when the finish starts to fail, the only repair is to remove it.
Really light work with a card scraper removes the finish quite well.
I slowly and carefully removed the finish near the parts of the stock where the wood meets the gun. Don’t want to round off the edges.
The stock was kind of thick in the wrist, so I wanted to remove some of the wood and effectively give it more apparent palm swell, which was a thing that did not exist when this gun was made in the 70’s.
Using a fishtail gouge and then a rounded file I was able to create a more comfortable grip.
Here you can see the difference in color between the light color of the Birch and the stain my dad used.
Instead of scraping down parallel to the grooves on the stock, which would crash into each groove, I skew the scraper so that it never falls into the grooves.
I used a large triangular file to remove finish from the grooves on the pump.
I was 14 when he got me this gun and he cut the stock down to my size. I needed to put some length back on it. So I poured a spacer with deep pour epoxy into a rectangular silicone mold. I mixed three colors, black, red, and blue. It makes a nice transition between the wood, and the black Kick-Eez recoil pad. I have these pads on all my shotguns and they perform very well.
The silicone mold makes it easy to pour an inch and a half of epoxy to make the spacer.
After the spacer had cured, I used some faster setting epoxy to secure the recoil pad to the spacer. This will ensure that they don’t shift around.
I used a large metal block to hold the recoil pads down while the joining epoxy cured.
After they were secured, I used my drill press to extend the screw holes already in the recoil pad, into the spacer. Then I used a handsaw to remove most of the excess epoxy spacer. I didn’t want to get too close to the wood, I just want to reduce the amount of sanding I have to do to get the stock, spacer, and recoil pad flush to each other.
The pull saw makes it easy to trim away extra epoxy and recoil pad.
I put my belt sander in a vise to hold it, then bring the stock close and use the 220 grit belt to get the spacer and recoil pad close to being flush. I never manage to get a photo of this because it is a two-hand operation. After it is close to flush, I switch to hand sanding.
When hand sanding I have to be careful not to round off the crisp edges of the wood. I have a Sand-It sanding block from Milescraft that I really like. It is the perfect size for stock work and it has a few different contours that make it perfect for the job. I also love that it is affordable. (affiliate only, no sponsorship, paid full money) Having a few means I don’t have to constantly swap out the different grits.
I really like this sanding block.
The curved and flat profiles come in very handy.
I started with 180 then worked my way up to 1500. On the wood, I stop at around 400, but the spacer and recoil pad need up to 1500 to get them smooth. After sanding it all smooth. I contemplated trying my hand at checkering, but decided not to risk it. I experimented on scrap wood with the idea of burning in a stippled pattern. I didn’t like the results on the sample so I decided to stay with the smooth grips.
Trying to make Birch look good is not easy. I avoided stain because Birch is prone to blotching. So I layered on some dye. Using RIT dye yellow liquid as a base, then followed up with mainly TransTint Dark Walnut dye and a little TransTint Mahogany dye for color. All three dyes I mix with alcohol so they dry quickly. I lost count of the applications but it was essentially one coat of yellow, followed by 4 of Dark Walnut, then one of Mahogany. Followed up with light sanding with 400 grit to remove the raised grain, then one more layer of Dark Walnut. I am fairly happy with the results. It’s not Back Walnut, but it is as close as Birch can be.
I taped off the spacer and the recoil pad, mainly to keep the dye from getting into/onto the recoil pad.
I found several people online that all recommended starting with a yellow dye as a base coat. This photo does not really capture how yellow it was.
I mix the Rit dye with alcohol so it drives quickly and does not raise the grain so much.
Next I used dark walnut TransTint dye to blend from the outer edges toward the yellow center. This gives is a little more depth. Since it is dye, you can move the colors around a little bit just by putting alcohol on a cloth and rubbing it.
Next up was to wipe it with a light rubdown of pure Tung oil and while still wet, rubbing in fine rottenstone powder. Rottenstone is a fine gray powder (brick dust) that turns black when it hits the oil. It rubs into the pores of the wood as a grain filler. Then I buff the excess powder off.
From here I followed my normal stock finishing method of Sun and Tung oil finishing which I think is the best finish for gun stocks.
7 coats of pure Tung oil give this a great look. It is also much more repairable than the old polyurethane.
A nice shine and a great feel.
The spacer picks up a nice shine from the pure Tung oil and comes alive in the sunlight.
The pump handle shines up nice too.
Bottom view of the pump handle.
Here is the completed Mossberg 500CT alongside an Ithaca Model 37 with actual Black Walnut stocks.
And here we have the gun all refinished.
Before & After