I spent a large part of the day yesterday working on the stock. Black goo was stripped off and then I got to work with y trusty travel iron and a wet rag. I steamed out a lot of small dings and scrapes. I don't think that I can move the remaing dents any more than I have already.Overall, I would say that the wood looks pretty good for a 130 year-old working gun.
Next step will be staining to even out the finish. I generally like to use leather dye and I have an assortment that I mix and match to suit the piece of wood. I probably will give a coat of yellow first to help make the tiger stripe pop. Medium brown afterwards. I needed to blend some colors on the left side of the forearm where somebody previously stripped finish a little aggressively. I think that it blended nicely and should be almost invisible after I stain all the wood brown.
I think that I got lucky with this rifle. The wood is going to look really nice when finished.