From what I learned about stain was that it is made so anyone can get an ok finish. The pigment used in stain is much larger than the pigment in dye, I was told that it's like comparing a golf ball to a pin head. Since the pigment in stain is so large it really doesn't color the wood, the pigments lay on top of the wood and the stain contains binders that "glue" the pigment in place. You can get even results with stain but it blocks the finer details in the wood. That's why on the factory finish you can barely see the grain in the stock of a 10/22. Dye on the other hand colors the wood without blocking the grain. I hope to have some pictures up by tomorrow. This morning I bought a sprayer and I mixed the dye with denatured alcohol. I mixed the dye half strength so it is lighter than I wanted. I sprayed the stock with the first coat and let it dry. Then I sanded the stock lightly with 220 grain wet or dry paper. This lightened the harder part of the grain while leaving the softer, more absorbent part of the grain darker. I wiped the stock down with a clean cloth then sprayed it with a second coat. The stock is now a warm medium brown with a slight reddish hue. When the dye was dry I wiped in a coat of Danish oil, it's a boiled linseed oil derivative that's thinned so that it soaks into the wood. It's going to need 15 to 20 coats to complete the process. This builds the finish from within the wood versus on top of the wood. With a finish like polyurethane it turns out hard and very protective, but you lose any depth to the wood grain finish. Depending on how I like the final result, I might opt to put a final layer of tung oil finish. This is not really tung oil but rather a varnish that is mixed with oils and thinner to create a varnish that penetrates like the danish oil but it leaves a semi-protective layer of varnish.