T,
Yeah, it was acid stained. The first rifle we did, Martin's Station No.1, was stained with a homemade brew. We took some nitric acid and desolved iron in it until it couldn't hold any more, then filtered it, and let it set for half a year. This gave the sugar maple stock a nice red color, but the contrast wasn't what I like. Rifle No.2 was stocked with a sister piece of wood, so we wanted to try something that would give more contrast, while retaining the red. My experience with Wakon Bay's AquaFortis is that it gives a good contrast, but doesn't have the red I like. So, I took a scrap piece of the stock wood and stained a place with our homebrew, a place with WB AF, and a place with a 50/50 mixture of the two. After putting a quick coat of finish on it, I took it to Capt. Martin (aka Billy Heck) and before I could say anything, he pointed to the 50/50 spot and said "Use that." So that's what we used.
Andy