Gentlemen,
I decided to refinish my Thumbhole stock for my contender. Stripped it down, sanded it, then decided to put a shadowline on the cheek piece. Turned out pretty good. Wet the stock down, then used a heatgun, sanded down again 220 grit. Then put on the stain. Now my problem is the "end" grain at the grip is way to dark, almost black. I know why this happened, should have used 400 or 600 on the end grain, but I didn't. So how would you go about lighting it up? Anything would help.

Thanks Tony

You might try wood bleach. Another option is to resand the area and then apply a stain prep before you apply the stain. The prep will seal the grain to reduce tha mount of stain that is soaked up. A gel satin will also soak in less.

I admit this isn't any help to you now, but I believe the use of stain causes more problems than it solves. I have found that the finish itself brings out the color of the wood just fine in almost every case. The only time I have added stain to a gunstock was to try to darken some sapwood to make it less noticeable.