Darkening chip repair in stock

I recently picked up a pretty decent Winchester model 94, circa 1955. The only real issue I’ve found is in the forward stock - it looks like there was a chip and a previous owner filled it, but didn’t bother to try to match the color with the rest of the stock. I’m not sure if it’s something that can be done without refinishing the entire stock, which isn’t an option in my mind. If it comes to that I’d rather leave it as is, since the rest of the stock has aged beautifully.

So I’d like to know if there’s a way I can darken this repair- I don’t expect it to match perfectly, but just to make it look a little less noticeable. Let me know what you think

Thank you all

I thought about the stain markers, but since I have all kinds of stain and varnish laying around already I didn’t want to go out and buy something new.

I like the idea of sanding it and applying a stain, as best as I can match it. Maybe some tru oil or polyurethane on top of that.

jmr40 - I was leaning towards just leaving it out of fear of screwing it up, but the more I look at it, it just really detracts from the rest of the stock. But regardless of what I do, I’ll make sure to not touch anything outside that one spot.

Mike - good point about the grain. I guess no matter how well I match it, if the grain doesn’t match it will still look off. I’ll practice that and see if I can get good enough results to use on the gun.

I was able to get to it today...went ahead and sanded it down carefully. Then made some light cuts to simulate grain. I didn’t want to go overboard with this. I think it did help, though. Then I applied stain with a Q-tip. I thought I had a good match, but it absorbed the stain more than wood would, so it turned out darker than I really wanted. Lesson learned there. Then I put a bit of polyurethane over it, again with a Q-tip. It ain’t perfect, but now I don’t have to see that ugly chip every time I look at the gun. Thanks everyone.