Karnis,
You've heard from a couple of experts, and there's not much I can add. I have refinished some stocks having the hard "modern" finishes, and can certainly agree that it is a royal PITA. I can't blame any professional for not wanting to tackle the job, or charging several hundred dollars if they are willing to do it. I have stripped these finishes the hard way, with a strong finish remover and lots of elbow grease, meaning repeated coats of the remover followed by scraping with a razor blade and steel wool. Even then it is hard to get all the old finish out of the pores, and this must be done if most types of new finishes are to adhere properly. If you are commited to refinishing your stock, you can save time and trouble by having a professional furniture refinishing shop strip off the old finish. Even then, I had one local guy tell me that he would never do another. What I do these days is get most off it off myself, then turn it over to the pro to get the remainder off and out of the pores. You do have one advantage with the Remington Classic in that it doesn't have any plastic fittings to get eaten up by the chemical finish removers. Done properly, a refinished factory stock can really look nice, much better than the factory finish. My son has a Remington Classic and the factory finish really sucked, full of drips and lumps, kinda like pigskin. It now wears a McMillan. Good luck!
Paul
