Centaur 1

Thanks, but to be honest the finish that I use makes it so easy. After stripping the wood with paint stripper it only took a light sanding with 220 grit paper. I use Formsby's tung oil finish, which contrary to its name contains no tung oil. It's a wiping varnish/soya oil/mineral spirit mixture. It's much tougher than linseed oil and it dries quicker. I use the low gloss, as you can see from the pics that it still has a nice shine without being too shiny. The high gloss finish would probably be too much for a hunting gun. I just finished this gun last weekend. It's a Marlin 17hmr and I decided to dye the wood dark green before finishing. Dye will color the wood without hiding any of the grain pattern like a lot of stains will do.