Another Mutant stock refinish

My Taipan Mutant Standard came with the same dark brown painted finish as most of them but maybe a little uglier than average. I have a custom walnut stock on order but decided to refinish my factory stock to see what I could do to improve its appearance. Underneath that brown paint is a decent piece of wood that looks just like red oak but I assume it’s northern ash as others have said. It was fairly easy to remove the original finish by using Citri-Strip, a sharpened putty knife, and a wire brush. The original finish took around three hours to remove. That includes the time it takes for the stripper to dissolve the toxic waste used to paint the stock that ugly brown color. I originally chose Minwax pecan stain but after staining and sealing the stock it was a little too light for my taste. It looked like stained red oak but I wanted more of a red walnut finish. Two days later on a rainy day I stripped off the oak finish and started over. The benefit of using a chemical stripper over hand sanding is that the stock isn’t reduced in size when stripping. I recommend Citri-strip as it is much less caustic on your hands, it’s odor free, and it does a terrific job dissolving paint and varnish. For the re-stain I applied a water based aniline dye in red walnut and sealed it with Minwax Antique Oil finish. The grain in these stocks is extremely deep and seems to be softer than the wood surrounding it. Although I’d prefer a totally smooth stock finish, I didn’t want to remove too much wood trying to smooth it out so the grain is still uneven. It is still much better looking than the original painted finish. Here are photos of the first and second refinishes. IMHO it is much less of an eyesore than it is with the factory finish.

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