I once engraved an old English rook rifle that turned out to be so pitted it made me think of Swiss cheese. I ended up peening down the whole surface of the action to close the pits as much as possible before cutting and when it was color cased it looked just great...far better than I had hoped or expected. There was just no other way to treat the pits. There were some larger ones I was able to fill by inlaying bits of soft steel wire...something that is not all that hard to do.

Sam Welch