I have a savage with heavy benchrest stock, laminated construction.  I really don't like the coloring of the thing though.  Is it OK to strip and restain laminated stocks?  I don't want to melt the glue holding it together.  


Anyone have an experience with this?  Thanks.

Not going to work.  

The color of the laminate permeates the wood itself.  About all the "finish" that's applied is a high polish.

If you really don't like the color, about all you can do is coat it with paint, or something like the do-it-yourself bed liner stuff.

Huh, you don't say....  
Well thanks, you just saved me a bunch of time!

       I mostly agree but if you are at the point that you are about to apply a solid coating of paint or whatever you might first try the refinish. Brush on paint strippers will be safe but I wouldn't send it out to a dip tank type of furniture stripper.
       Many of the factory urethane type finish products are real tough and you more or less need to grind them off with sandpaper. After you have the finish off try some stains and see if the color goes where you want to be. If you want gloss you will need to reapply the clear.
      If you want a darker finish You could be in luck but I wouldn't have much hope for something lighter than you now have

Do NOT use any kind of stripper on a laminate stock.

You won't accomplish anything, since there is no coat of finish on the stock, and you could end up with laminate separation.  These are not finished as normal wooden stocks are, which are basically a piece of wood coated with urethane or some sort of oil finish.

The way the laminates are constructed is by sandwiching layers of dyed wood (usually birch) in an epoxy resin matrix, and applying heat and pressure to cure the parts into a solid mass.  

Then the top layer is polished; what looks like a normal finish is actually the epoxy resin polished to a high gloss.  

dye it black

Quoted: dye it black

tell me more about this process please