Although it is toxic, and must be used in a well ventilated area( OUTDOORS!) Acetone works to strip just about anything. If you are trying to remove some unknown factory finish, try that. Expect some kind of paint rather than stain to be used on many gunstocks by factories, particularly the cheaper, mass marketed varieties. It will come off with the finish. Once you see what the wood is, and what grain exists, you can decide either to repaint it brown, or whatever, and refinish it after the paint dries, or bring out the grain such as it is, with stains and dyes, and then finish the wood. I did this on an inexpensive .22 rifle that had a stock made of birch, but which had some nice grain under brown paint. I used stains to highlight the grain, and then hand rubbed an oil finish into the stock. If I had charged for my labor, the cost would have exceeded the retail price of the gun many times over. But, I was doing the stock for a friend, who wanted the gun cleaned up so he could set it aside for a grandson, and, I was looking for a project to do. This was the best sow's ear that I could turn into a silk purse that week. He didn't recognize his gun when I returned it to him! It was a new, and oiled gun for him, and I suspect he took it to the farm to try it out himself the next weekend. He was surely proud to have that gun with its new finish. It was all he could talk about over coffee the next morning.
