Many professionals use "Easy off Oven Cleaner". Hang the stock, coat it with Easy Off, wait 15 minutes and wash off. Apply second coat if necessary. This will take off most finishes without sanding and it has worked for me over the years. Didn't have to sand at all. Easy Off is a strong base and is removed easily with water.
I used Easy Off on dozens and dozens of WWII unmentionable stock sets of many sorts in a long military career, but I STOPPED using it over 2 decades ago.
First of all the fumes, if Acetone bothers you, Easy Off will drive you right out of even a large basement or garage. Yep, also tried the newer "lower fume" type when it first came out, but it usually required more coats, so you wind up getting the same fume inhalation - just over more coats. DEFINITELY use this stuff outdoors only!!
Second, you MUST really wash a stock down with water afterwards to neutralize it, including using a toothbrush to get it out of ALL the nooks and crannies, and that gets tricky for a number of reasons as you now have a waterlogged stock.
DO NOT put the waterlogged stock outside in the sun or aggressively attempt to dry it with a heat gun or even a hair dryer because I guarantee you it will often CRACK the stock. I learned to dry stocks and handguards as much as I could with paper towels and then leave them INSIDE for at least a day or two to begin to naturally dry out. THEN I put them outside IN THE SHADE for a full day. If you put it directly under a hot sun, it will also often crack the stock. Might take a second day outdoors IN THE SHADE to fully or mostly dry. Then and only then would I put them in the sun for a couple hours so it would face the inside and then outside of the stock to completely normalize dry.
STILL with all of that and being as careful as possible to fully wash off the Easy Off, you might wind up with a GREENISH cast to the wood days or even months later. This has happened to me twice out of many dozens of stocks. That GREENISH cast signified I DID NOT get the Easy Off fully neutralized and that means it is EATING the wood. So, even though the customers actually liked the color, I had to completely strip the stocks to neutralize what was left of the Easy Off and re-finish the wood AGAIN.
Over two decades ago and trying EVERY type of wood stripper on the market, I found Acetone was the best possible stripper for oil or oil/wax finishes and it leaves NOTHING behind on the wood. MSDS sheets confirm once the Acetone naturally dries in a few seconds, it is completely gone and no need for any kind of neutralizing agent.
I use chemical gloves to keep my old skin from drying out too much and wad up paper towels into a bunch, dip the bunch into Acetone and wipe off the old finish. Once that wad of paper towels is full, grab a new wad of paper towel and repeat in another area until you have cleaned the whole stock. I then do it one more time over the whole stock, but that's fast as most everything is already gone. If the stock is really dirty and grungy, like you find some WWII stocks, I use a copper wool, Kitchen "Chore Boy" scrubber to help get the gunk off, but you almost never find that on ML stocks.
Now if someone used heavy coats of Lacquer or VARNISH on the stock, then I do the same thing with Lacquer Thinner to get the majority of the old finish off. I finish with a scrub down of Acetone to make sure that and everything else is all gone.
Once that is done, the stock is dry and ready for sanding or staining if you prefer and then on to a good oil finish.
These methods are pretty fast, don't harm the wood and are easy for almost anyone to do.
Gus
