I guess I am well on my way to being one of those kitchen table gunsmiths. While talking to my gunsmith the other day he offered to sell me his checkering tools, said that if I got good enough he would send me all the work. I turned him down flat. Later after some thought I ordered a beginners set of tools from Brownells. It was a whole lot cheaper and If I can't do well even after practice I won't be out much.
Anyway, after reading the chapter on checkering in a how to gunsmithing book that suggested to get started checkering one should freshen up the checkering on an old stock first. So I decided to refinish and freshen up the checkering on a Savage m111 stock. I mean really can you make a Savage stock look worse? I have stripped off all old finish and sanded to 600 grit paper only to realise that a Savage stock is not walnut. My how to gunsmithing book says most are birch stained to look like walnut. I knew this but forgot.
I said all that to ask this. Has any body refinished one of these birch stocks without staining it? I am planning on using Formbeys Tung oil finish. What do you think? Again I don't think you can really goof up a Savage stock, and if I do, it will give me a great reason to get a decent peice of wood on this rifle.

I just refinished a birch/Savage stock.
Striped off the plastic "bowling pin" finish stuff with paint remover and sanded with various grits down about 600 and fine steel wool. I tried "whiskering" but I guess birch is so dense nothing came up.
The origional "walnut" stain was actually almost grey and looked like crap. I finally used a water based dark red mahogony stain after trying walnut because it just looked better to me. After staining I aplied several hand rubbed coats of Tru-oil followed by paste wax a few weeks later. Now, unless you look closely, you can't tell it's a birch stock.
I actually like the shape of the Savage stock except the forearm is a little fat for my taste. It does have a nice pistol grip and it fits me well. And, the inletting is quite good for such an inexpensive rifle.
Good luck with your project.

Jon

ElCabellero, if you take a sponge or clean rag with a little mineral spirits and swap a little onto your stock you'll get an idea of what it would look like finished with no stain. I am in the middle of a couple of projects similar to yours, except they are stocks I really like. If I get to a sticking point I am sending them out to a professional.

At any rate based on what I've read and gleaned from some pros I think the tung oil is fine, and should give you a nice finish.