CZ 457 Refinishing

[jednorris]

My new CZ 457 has a mud-colored finish and I keep hearing that many CZ's have a nice wood grain underneath and many owners refinish their stocks. I figure the only way to find out is to take a leap of faith and strip the old finish off. Has anyone tried this and was it worth the effort? What would be a good stripper to try to use that would be best for removing this finish?

[quack1]

My side job for over 50 years was making stocks, finishing, checkering, bedding, etc. I have refinished quite a few CZ stocks, some have nice grain, some are pretty plain, some included sap wood. ALL looked much better after getting rid of the factory stain/finish, so yes, it is worth the effort, even if only to remove the ugly factory color. I even had guys bring new guns directly from the store to be refinished many times. The factory finish wasn't anything special, any good (good means not the green, environmentally friendly ones) stripper should work. Be sure to wash the stock with paint thinner after stripping, whether it says no wash or not, prevents a lot of problems. After a lot of trial and error over the years, I settled on using ZipStrip Marine and Aircraft stripper, worked really well on most finishes, other than epoxy.
Go for it, you'll be happy you did. Life is too short to hunt with an ugly gun.

[sigep1764]

Strip it and find a good looking stain. Then use true oil to seal it. You will end up with a beautiful stock. True oil takes many finger rubbed coats and sanding in between every three or so coats but man it looks good when finished.

[RickinTN]

Citristrip is another stripper used by many. I have used it and worked well.
Good Luck,
Rick

[sigep1764]

Citrustrip is what I use as well