GMPD, the person you should PM is Mountain Devil. While I don't agree with his choice of favorite manufacturer, I do believe he does solid work on finishing and beautifying muzzleloaders. He could give you every answer and advise you seek and does very nice work himself. I've seen some of the evidence of his abilities and would take his advice on refinishing sidelock muzzleloaders. He might even advise you to, instead of bluing, strip the old bluing, polish the metal and assure no pitting remains (if any) and go with browning. Drop him a PM and go from there. Those old renegades look good with a good bluing but my own personal opinion is they are REALLY set off with all the metal browned. As far as the stock goes, with some of those nicks being as deep as they are, I would just start with sandpaper to strip all finish and then use a water and glass method to swell those nicks and dents out. Take a drop or 2 of water and put it in the dent, give it a few seconds to seep in a little, then take smooth glass (I have a thick glass rod for this. Got it to remove small dents in pool cues) and rub it vigorously to create heat. This will cause the grain to swell bringing the dent up. Sand smooth. If you tried to sand out the nicks and dents, you would have to take a lot of the surrounding wood out to get it even without trying to swell the dents first. It can be a bit time consuming but it is a proven method and keeps one from changing the dimensions of the stock by removing too much wood while sanding.