After a stripper is used, the stock must be sanded along with raising the grain between each grit.

Before committing to linseed oil, find a piece of hardwood scrap, sand it, raise the grain, sand, and repeat until the surface is smooth.  Use a tack cloth or a wipe down with paint thinner to remove the dust.  Apply linseed oil, wait a few days, then decide if that seems like a great choice.  (It's not, linseed oil is the worst choice for a firearm.)

If this will be a usin' gun, then make your life simple with either Gun Sav'r or Minwax polyurethane aerosol.  Apply a thin coat, rub it in, wait ~30 minutes to an hour, apply another coat and wait, then one more coat and you're finished at the end of the day.  The stocks will look as fine as those "hand rubbed oil" finishes that are also polyurethane used since the mid 1950's.  Waiting overnight then rubbing the finish out with a clean cotton rag might be a slight improvement.

Clean the checkering with a stiff tooth brush or similar.

Try a little linseed oil.  Slap it on a piece of bare wood, don't bother to sand or other prep.  What you'll find is that it won't cure quickly and will remain sticky for months.

Besides that, linseed oil is not waterproof.

There are no end of people that disagree with me about linseed oil.  That's the reason I recommend everyone use it to finish a rifle to get it out of their system.

Folks still slather it on stocks because that's how those grandpa Marines in the last century treated their rifles - one coat a day for a week, one coat every week for a month, and one coat every month for a year.

Its poor qualities led to finishes such as Linspeed and Birchwood Casey Tru Oil modified linseed based oils that work well.  The trouble is the time required to wait on each cost to cure.

A linseed coated stock can be cured quicker by putting it in direct Sun for several days until it's less sticky.  They look great on a properly prepared stock after it dries, but too much time and hand rubbing is needed, especially for a gun that will be used.

You should think about staining the stock and filling the grain.  The best way to fill the grain is by light wet sanding with a thinned oil finish.  The sanding dust fills the pores.  More work, and maybe not needed depending on your preference.

Here's a Martini International stock with no filling and more than ten thinned coats of Tru Oil -



When I bought that rifle I had no intention other than shooting, but the condition was so sorry I couldn't stand it and disassembled the gun as soon as I got home.  I wish I had kept that rifle.

Stained with a Minwax oil based stain.

I don't bother with stripper, I sand the finish off.

I might use a stripper on those thick heavy shiney polyurethane finishes of the 1970's that fail, then start to craze, chip, and flake.  I traded off a otherwise nice Ithaca shotgun because I didn't need a project at the time due to the finish.  Should have shoved it in the back.