The two products in the photograph can be used to put a passable finish on a gun stock. Now I am not saying that I give them my stamp of approval though what I will say they are food for thought and further experimentation. I am sure that you will be able to purchase both products but under different manufactures names. As you can see they are sanding sealers and these two products do that extremely well and with a little practice you can come up with a good looking stock finish from beginning to end in four hours using the cellulose and a day using the shellac version.
The cellulose dries so fast that it is doing it as you apply it and being sandable within a couple of minutes, the shellac version is a little slower, they also lend themselves to being coloured. They in their nature fill moderate grain you can also mix Talc with the shellac version for grain filling though the cellulose is a flash drying product difficult to add filler and use.
Method I used, seal the wood with a couple of coats sand to the wood surface fill the grain sand again to the wood surface then add other coats until the stock shows no grain and feels smooth. Finally mat the surface with "OOO" steel wool then use a magnet to remove steel woo whiskers from the wood then polish with three coats of Linseed oil and Wax polish allowing drying time between each coat.
You can leave the wax polish out for a time and put a couple of coats of Linseed oil with dryers though this will lengthen the time, out of the two sealers the shellac gets my vote for ease of use.
Traditional it is not, but the look of the finished product will be passable to most folks, and others will hate it only if they know how the results where achieved.
