I have an 1895gbl.

The blonde wood is just not great. Can anyone suggest a custom shop to do a much darker set?

Sand it down and make it any color you like. It is not hard and you get the satisfaction of knowing it is done right. I refinished a beat up looking Marlin 30/30 stock and it looked so nice I did not want to take it hunting, but I did.

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Originally posted by usncorpsman:
Sand it down and make it any color you like. It is not hard and you get the satisfaction of knowing it is done right. I refinished a beat up looking Marlin 30/30 stock and it looked so nice I did not want to take it hunting, but I did.

This, you can sand it down and put coats of tung oil on it to darken it, or any other type of stain you can rub on.

I bedded the action of an old Marlin 60 and it shot amazingly well so I didn’t want to mess with the stock. I used pure tung oil to refinish it. After a dozen layers and many weeks of curing, it’s turned a very nice blond color with depth in it.

Unless I just wanted a higher grade of wood, I'd do like the others suggested and just refinish the existing stock.

If you just want to buy different stocks, www.boydsgunstocks.com has many choices.

Marlin Custom Shop.
Call them--either buy a new high grade wood stock or have them refinish your old stock.
Back in the old days-Marlin was down the street in Conn. I had purchased a Marlin 1895--took the gun home from the dealer and discovered a cracked butt stock. Dealer took it over to Marlin--they put a brand new high grade wood stock on.

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blonde wood

I thought the GBL came with laminated wood. Could you post some pics? I've seen some plain looking wood that actually had some amazing looking grain after it was stripped, stained, and hit with either Tung oil or poly.