Filling the pores must be done before you apply the finish or WHILE you apply the finish, it cannot be done after the finish has cured.

By wet sanding, he is referring to sanding the stock directly after the finish has been applied, while it's still wet, which creates a slurry of finish and sawdust which fills the pores.

If you want to fix the problem, you have to strip it back down to bare wood.

 

Thx Skeet_man,
You've painfully reminded me of that which I already knew .... and was hoping for an easier way out
I've a chum who is progressively refinishing a multicoat enamel finish on a Rolls - and unrelenting wet sanding in that case equates to leveling the finish vs pore filling.
I thought that the post search located by Dave H had inferred a technique closer to 'leveling'.

 

You would still have to sand the original finish down enough so that the remaining finish stayed in the pores, which would result in opening new pores.

 

Wet sanding is a painfully slow process over several cycles of finish application. Wood filler/sealer is available. I will be buying Aqua Coat grain filler for my next stock project. I expect a $35 tin of it will last a lifetime for stocks.

 

I wet sanded mine with Tru Oil
Started with 400, 600, 800 then 1200
I wet sand with tru oil to create a slurry then wipe off straight away with blue shop towel.
I just keep repeating that process until the pores are filled. Then just hand rub oil into stock. It came out great.

 

That sir, is an excellent sheen finish

 

i just refinished mine. I didn’t do any of that wet sanding. I probably would have, now that I read about here. I sanded mine down to bare wood. 220, 400, then 600 grit. Then 4 coats of tru-oil followed by about 8 coats of minwax wipe on polyurethane. Polished with simichrome and then a coat of renaissance wax.

 

I've seen the above gun in person, looks fantastic.

 

This thread and IA_Buehler inspired me to refinish the stock on the (new to me) Yildiz I bought. Stock had apparently been professionally refinished, but I could tell there was beauty left underneath. I ended up bleaching the stock (ignore mis-matched forearm), wetting/drying with heat gun to 320, using aqua coat pore filler, then wet sanding 400-800 with a final oil coat of Minwax Antique Oil, then 800-1500 and two final coats over that 24 hours apart. Some Minwax paste wax just to get it ready for the range.

Slapped it on IA_Buehler's gun since my trigger is off getting made into a setback.