Commercial wood stains tend to muddle cherry's natural colors, I would stay away from it on cherry. Cherry also comes in a great variety of grain coloring and contrasts, from bland to WOW and all in between. We have no way of knowing what you have at hand.
I believe your best route, like Dennis recommends, would be a dilute lye based mix and to go at it in light coats with a damp rag, to sneak up on your desired color. A little bit will do you. Be SURE to neutralize well before it gets as dark as you think you want it. Let it dry for a few days and begin your finishing processing. Remember too that the cherry will continue to darken naturally over time. Also, have all your neutralizing materials at hand before you apply the lye stain, it goes pretty fast. I'll tell you right now that there is a knack to staining cherry, if you have any left over stock material do practice on that before tackling your stock. If you have no leftover consider playing with the stain inside the barrel channel.
I have never done a gun stock with a lye based stain but have done lots of furniture with it. There was an old gentleman in our shop who made it up at home for our finishing department, he used Red Devil lye. Give Acer's suggestion of oven cleaner too, applied somewhere on scrap or in the barrel channel you can control and quickly stop the reaction.
dave
dave
