New Culina Grips
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I am lucky enough to have several sets from the Culinas and they are magnificent. Great people to deal with and their grips are in a class by themselves.
Absolute jaw droppers !!
Beautiful set of grips on a nice gun, love when the wood dances around. Bet in the sun they move a lot, Larry
I think I have one of the Culina's first round to square butt conversions, they were not advertising them at the time and I asked if it could be done as I was doing everything I could to reduce the recoil of an early 629 Mountain Revolver in .44 magnum. John and Jennifer worked with me and produced a very nice set of stocks that were built to my hand measurements. John told me he had some Honey Bastogne Walnut on hand and turned these out for me. I sold the revolver but kept the stocks, they now live on a Model 24-3 Lew Horton Special.
Here's a picture of the palm swell John built into this set of stocks I asked him to build for my 2nd Model Target.
FYI the Magnas they make also have bilateral palm swells. I have a set on my 17-1 and they are truly great.
I'm a big fan of Culina's work as well. OP, your stocks look fantastic as do all of the revolvers pictured in this thread. Here is a set on a 1989 Mountain Revolver that was shown a little while back.
My only post 1964 44 Magnum, but one I'm very fond of due to John's excellent work.
My only post 1964 44 Magnum, but one I'm very fond of due to John's excellent work.
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Very Very nice OP. How long did you have to wait for them?
Too pretty to hide in a safe. They would live on my nightstand. 
I asked John if he could come up with a nice pair of tiger striped maple to go along with a couple of muzzleloader stocks I was working on. He did a beautiful job as usual, I never find the wait to be too long unless you are asking for something truly custom or waiting for a wood to come. I think the longest I waited was six months or so for a set of American Holly palm swell magnas, they are sitting on my usual truck piece.
I waited 2 +years for the English walnut grips. Somebody else waited 2 years for the roasted birdseye maple, and then after 6 weeks of trying to contact the guy that ordered them, They were offered to me when I got my English Walnuts. I could not say no.
I have a couple Claro Walnut sets from almost 20 years ago. They are hand carved
I have a couple Claro Walnut sets from almost 20 years ago. They are hand carved
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I currently have 5 sets of Culinas 1 Walnut, 1 Bubinga and 3 Osage Orange. The longest time wait for me was 8 weeks.
That darker stain on the birdseye maple makes them absolutely pop!
Here is a set of American Holly I got from John and Jennifer, Jennifer does a very good of holding your hand while you fret over when your stocks will arrive. John did put the same palm swell into these that he puts on all my stocks based off of hand measurements.
So far this is my favorite carry revolver, it just edges out my 24-3 Lew Horton Special by just a Scosche. If I were in a situation where an emanate gun fight was a daily reality I would carry the 24-3, or worse case scenario switch platforms entirely and go to my high capacity .45 HK Tactical USP.
There is an old timey trick to getting your maple to pop. It involves using an old formula known as aqua fortis, nitric acid and iron fillings combined. You get your stock to the finished to the point where you are going to use a little water to bring out the feathers, then scrape that down to final of your choice. The aqua fortis is applied, allowed to dry overnight, then a heating source, the old timers used to hold it over a wood stove, I used my hot dog cooking heat gun. You appy the heat as evenly as possible and you can watch it turn a darker color where the aqua fortis has absorbed better, the tight grains hold their own. Let that rest overnight and reapply as desired it will darken each time. The first time I did, it scared the bejasus out of me because it turned a light green, the heat takes care of that. I talked to John about that, his method is a secret.
This is how well my first attempt went, this was an overcast day otherwise it would really shine.
Another old timers trick was to use an aniline dye between the aqua fortis application and your final finish. On this stock I used an orange aniline dye (think leather dye-alcohol based) I had a couple of scrap pieces to try these things out on and had a yellow, orange and red dye. Care must be taken because as mentioned I have seen rifle stocks turn a definite green shade, which in the right mind might be appealing, like a hunting rifle's camouflage. Ive seen it done accidently and rather than strip it off he ran with it, knocked a couple hundred off the rifle's value.
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