I just completed on two sets of sar wood,one dark and one medium. Instead of bleaching the wood I used a 'secret' sanding method to strip the varnish and damn did it come out good. This secret method only takes off the varnish not the wood so you can almost totally strip that nasty embedded grain off the wood plus it doesn't shrink the stock! On my sar2 i put an RPBUSA non folder with romanian bakelite p-grip and the light brown upper and lower wood and the wood actually has a laminate look to it. on the sar1 I put the darker smooth satin wood set and both guns look totally different. I would post pics but I dont know how to

Belive it or not i used drywall screen to strip the varnish.The screens work best when cut into 3rd's and then folded over.After you take the wood off use the screen on the upper hand guard first, thats the easiest to strip and you find rubbing with the grain is most effective. Do not sand in circles or you will just scratch not strip.Every so often wipe the white looking residue off the the wood and keep stripping until you start to bear wood color.This only takes about half and hour to strip the whole set. After you get the varnish off use 3m Sandblaster heavy grit sand paper this is the only sand paper that works(its got a blueish look to it).Again sand back and forth no circles.Once you have got the wood bear hit it again with the drywall screen and then get a damp towel and clean.My first one took about forty mins. I can no strip a whole set in 20mins. Dont be fooled it is hard work at first but once that shit color starts to disappear you quickly see the rest go even faster.For finish color i used minwax polyshades all in one. I found that the classic oak gloss looks damn good with 3 coats for a light brown color. For dark wood use old maple color in SATIN ONLY belive me gloss looks like shit.  Remember use Norton 220 grit drywall screen
3M Sandblaster heavy grit
Minwax Poly shades  gloss light color/satin dark