I picked up a little 1a in 7x57 about 20 years ago at a gun show that looked like the wood had been ridden hard and put up wet. Big patches of what turned out to be polyurethane missing, wood grayed underneath and remainder of the finish was cloudy. The metal was good otherwise I would have passed. It took a lot of scraping and then careful sanding so as to not mess up the checkering which was also in good shape. I used a British formula called Slackum oil that I found over on the doublegun.com forum and it turned out to be one of the best looking stocks I have. As I remember it took a long time to remove that old finish but worth it. It looks better than any of my newer #1 rifles.
