Now once the stock is finally shapped it is time to sand it out. This is where you loose your finger nails and your finger prints. Sanding is tedious work and is time consuming if you want the stock to come out right. I start with 100 grit and work up to at least 400 grit before the finishing starts. As I neglected to mention in my prior post, all final shapping and sanding is done with the rifle assembled. This is because to get a good wood to metal fit you have to cut the wood down to the metal and during the shaping you go to finer and finer files untill the wood is just proud of the metal. Next you sand untill the wood and metal are flush. You should feel no difference in the level of the wood and the metal only a difference in texture. This means that you also sand the metal but by the time you get to 400 grit all is like glass. Once I get to 220 grit I wet sand using mineral spirits as a wetting agent. This does two things. First it makes your paper last longer and second it fills the pores of the wood with the sanding dust of the wood which fills the pores and speeds up the finishing. At times when I finish with the 220 grit I remove the metal from the wood and apply a coat of thined finish. This will help to show file and sanding marks you have missed and it seems like you are chaseing these marks through the hole process.
All sanding is done with sanding blocks as rounded edges are a big no no. A good size eraser workes great, however around the shadow lines the only way to go is to fold the paper, keep it plenty wet and work slowly. I use a 2.5 power Opti Visor for checkering and finishing, if your work looks good at 2.5 power it will look fantastic to the naked eye.

If this comes out, it is the finished rifle in South Africa in 2001