[PhilOhio]

I have to agree and disagree with a couple things in Ron's excellent post. Toothbrush cleaning is the way to go, with water as hot as your hands can comfortably take it. Liquid dish detergent is not nearly as effective as picking up your soap onto the bristles from a bar of hand soap, which is reasonably mild for the wood (and hands), yet more effective than most dish detergents. But lots of things work. I used to worry about warping the wood, but it has never happened in the last 40 years, so I guess it won't happen now.

Tung oil and Watco are excellent, IF you want to add a slight gloss finish. I don't want to do that on checkered wood. If you only use about one light coat, it may not be noticeable, but it will seal the wood.

For rifle stocks or pistol grips where you want to build up a gloss or a flat finish, nothing I have found beats the Formby's finish, which is mostly tung oil. You buy it in either gloss or flat, and you can control the degree of both, in the way you wipe it on (thick or thin) and prep with fine steel wool between coats. You could use a soft lint-free cotton pad to daub one coat of the flat version of this on Luger grips, and probably get away with it, without adding gloss, but this is not my first choice.

As Ron says, be careful with the thin grips. With those, another thing that may happen is that the bristle brush cleaning may reveal hairline cracks, which complicates things. I let the grip dry for about a day before slightly spreading the crack from behind with a thin screwdriver blade or putty knife. Then I work a tiny bit of Devcon 5-minute Epoxy into the open crack, close it and hold until set, and quickly remove any that oozes out, using a fine tool such as an X-acto blade. This repair will last forever, including on the stock of a rifle generating a lot of recoil, IF you got the oil out before putting the epoxy in.

I have to disagree about the linseed oil. And I'm talking about using only boiled linseed oil on any gun stock. I do use it on pistol grips, including Lugers, but only after the soap and toothbrush cleaning routine. It does not "soften" any kind of gunstock wood I know about, and I've been using it for many decades...as did all the military services, including the Germans.

But on checkered pistol grips? Minimize it, or it will attract and build up dirt and grime if overdone. After scrubbing and drying, your Luger grips will look terrible...bleached out and too clean. Yes, the linseed oil does darken them, as it is supposed to; as will all the other finishes mentioned. It will make them the same color as when new, approximately. Which is what we want. But if you keep doing it over and over for years, it will get darker, which is what you washed off with the toothbrush. And that's all that has to be done if you decide you have made it darker than you want.

I used to worry and worry that anything I might do to gun wood might "hurt" it. Not likely, unless you become really aggressive and remove wood, as by sanding, etc.

The main thing with checkered grips is to try not to make the checkering less sharp. Washing with a brush is no problem there.

Few simple things you can do to Luger grips will make as much difference to the gun's overall appearance as brushing, washing, and then replacing the original color...with one thin application of boiled linseed oil...or possibly the other things mentioned, if careful. And there may be other preservatives which work, without adding gloss. But boiled linseed oil application is the oldest and most common method.

Oh yes, just about any mistake you make when applying the coating finishes which build up a shell, such as tung oil or Watco, are easily reversed by using common gel-type paint stripper and the soap and water treatment. Strip it, clean it, dry it, and start over. Nothing is lost or permanently damaged...unless you do this endlessly and wear down the wood and your fingers.