I just heated and applied beeswax to a barrel, heavy on the bottom and conservative on the top, let it sit, heated it lightly again while lightly buffing, barrel has about 7 goes of LMF brown, pulled slightly back with a scuff pad. Really looks nice and thanks for the info on all the posts here I could find. Still trying to decide on beeswax over LMF stain with BLO on my maple stock.
PS: My wife loves the brown barrel with wax.....Whew.