M77 Upgrades - .375 Caliber

[68Shooter]

Hey guys. Not quite a precision distance gun, but I have an M77 Hawkeye Alaskan in .375 Ruger that is a great weapon. Short, extremely effective on game, and accurate out of the box at hunting distances (.75-1.25" at 100 yards, tough to shoot it that tightly all the time given the recoil, 6x scope, and that I just shoot of a nuttin fancy front bag but with my handloads it does the job when I do mine).

I'm interested in ideas for a refinish and potentially a different stock.

1. After only ONE trip to Alaska, the Alaskan was showing tiny rust spots, despite lubing carefully. What a joke. Recommendations for best refinish for the toughest conditions?

2. The second is a stock. As mentioned, the rife is accurate as is, but I want to consider some ideas. I've seen one gentleman glass bed his, thoughts on whether this would really be an improvement in stability? If a new stock, I'd go synthetic or laminate (use case is by all means Alaskan kind of weather & conditions), but I must say I appreciate the generous rubber recoil pad on the stock Hogue so something I can put a lot of pad on would be great.

I realize this is sort of off the cuff, but I'm just looking for ideas from some bolt gun guys that know what they're doing

Thoughts? Rifle on the top is the .375, not a great photo sorry it's what I got on this computer