some observations

Them most of the Chinese guns use that odd native wood that I tend to call Chinacrapwood. It evidently comes from small diameter trees.

Original finish is thick, lies on top of the wood, and tends to hide everything below (kind of like toe-nail polish). Once removed, may find some spots/cracks that have been filled. The filler will ALWAYS suck up more stain than the wood, always becoming darker than the wood.
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May also find a few knot-holes, which also always turn out darker than the rest of the stock.
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IF you have those faults, you can try the following. LIGHTLY stain just the problem areasuse thinned stain and go lightly. Once its cured, then paint over the knotholes/filler areas with varnish. Once that is cured, then go ahead and stain the rest of the stock, repeating until the color matches.

Tried that on this QB, which had several large areas of fill. Did get a darker brown stain to work, but it had to be evened out a bit (with BROWN SHOE POLISH) before the application of finish.

Same gun, two views
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For one without knotholes or filler, it does seem that the Chinacrapwood takes to light colored stains better than dark.

I bought this BAM 51 this way; I do not have the wood working talent to do this kind of work. Evidently its a reshaped BAM 51 stock with some contrasting wood additions. Still sticking to the honey blond color, which works out pretty well on the Chinacrapwood.

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Probably the same type of wood on an AR2078. Again, the honey blond color seemed to take well.
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