Broken Gun Club- new member

My first thought is to use a 2 part epoxy... but PVA wood glues are stronger than the wood pieces they hold together and would probably penetrate the wood fiber better. (Titebond III)

I think I would glue the 2 pieces together. After the glue dries and the 2 pieces line up seamlessly I would remove the grip cap and drill a hole up through the stock across the break and glue in a dowel to reenforce it if you feel it needs some extra strength. Leave the dowel long so you can saw it off flush with the bottom of the grip after the glue for the dowel dries.

How many splinters where shed when it broke and do you still have them? Carefully strightening out any bent over parts of the wood grain along the fracture before gluing the pieces back together while puzzeling in any splinters can make for a very tight almost invisible seam... but will usually require refinishing the stock to help the seam dissapear.

I have refinished several stocks... but never one that was checkered. My hunch is the checkering might need a bit of cleaning up with a checkering file before refinishing the stock.

PVA glue gives me the tightest seams and most invisible joints... of the glues I have used. I would consider thinning the PVA glue with water a bit before applying it to both sides of the break. Then let it firm up for a few minutes or so before pushing the two pieces together.


I can't tell on my phone... is that a Remington 700? A used Remington 700 stock in decent shape shouldn't be too hard to find?

Where's @GunnyUSMC? Pretty sure he can give you some tips on fixing that.

igotta40 said:

Thanks again Mike- no splinters, just the two pieces. You mentioned water. Is PVA a water based adhesive like Gorilla Glue?

It’s a Winchester model 70 Super Grade Maple .243. I’ve been looking on the internet for a replacement. Lots of stocks out there, haven’t found the exact same one yet.

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There was one on eBay a few months ago, don't remember if it sold but seller was asking 250ish

https://www.ebay.com/itm/124400341846

Interestingly....same one

Does it have value for you as a piece in pristine condition or as a shooter?
If the first, a new stock of your choice would be a good opportunity for some bedding and accurizing. If the latter, take it to a gunsmith if you cherish how it looked and you're not handy.

Me, I'd grab the PVA glue and some clamps, at least to get it serviceable. Not going to make it worse.
PVA glue is a family of glues covering everything from school glue to most wood glues. Gorilla Glue is also a brand so it's hard to say, but their usual one kind of foams up and makes keeping the lines clean tough.
Titebond is popular general-purpose internal glue for carpenters, and Titebond II is popular with carpenters and guitar builders. Common damage to guitars comes from a drop that breaks them either at the head or the base of the neck--but never at the actual glue line.

igotta40 said:

Thanks again Mike- no splinters, just the two pieces. You mentioned water. Is PVA a water based adhesive like Gorilla Glue?

It’s a Winchester model 70 Super Grade Maple .243. I’ve been looking on the internet for a replacement. Lots of stocks out there, haven’t found the exact same one yet.

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You are welcome. I can see it is a very nice looking stock. I really like maple.

What I think of as "Gorilla Glue" (they make several glues under that name now as I am sure you know) is their polyurathane glue that bubbles out and expands a bit like "Great Stuff" spray can insulation. I would not reccomens this here as I think it would be much more noticable.

PVA glue is simply yellow wood glue. On the woodworking forums it is PC to call it PVA glue... sorry about that. Titebond is a very common brand that is used extensively in woodworking. There are different versions of Titebond, Titebond 3 cures to be water proof and is the strongest of their 3 glues. Any of them (I, II and III) will do the job quite well. Elmers yellow wood glue would do a very good job too... it just isn't as hip as Titebond. LOL! All of these PVA glues are water based and can be thined a little with water. I wouldn't use more than 1 part water to 4 parts glue. Thinning the glue for a break like this will help it absorb into the woods grain a bit better and should also give a thinner glue line, especially when lightly coating both sides (small paint brush works well).

The brown honey looking Gorilla glue is polyurethane glue like I said above. It is actually moisture activated so slightly dampening the pieces you are glueing helps it set but it is not thinable with water. It is VERY strong and good at filling cracks. It is also good for gluing dissimular material together. But I don't think it is what you want to use here because I think it will leave a very dark noticable line at the glue joint.

It is some what common on a break like this for the grain/attached splinters to get bent over a bit. Carefully straightening any of these bent splinters back to the direction of the grain will keep them from being completely folded over and causing a gap between the two pieces. Put the two pieces together dry. They should fit very tight and show almost no line. Don't force them together too hard. If there is a gap when the pieces are put together there is most likely some bent over splinters that are keeping the two pieces apart. Straightening the splinter or some times just removing them with a tweezers should allow a tight fit. It shouldn't be too dificult to get a really tight fit, it usually just takes a bit more care and patients than just shoving the two pieces together.

Use a small paintbrush to spread a VERY thin coat of glue on each piece. Too much glue will leave a bigger line. The glue does not need to ooze out between the two pieces. I think you may have a difficult time clamping that break. Some times rubber surgical tubing or even long rubber strips cut from a inner tube can clamp odd shapes quite well when stretched a bit. A light sanding should make the glue line pretty much disappear... but then you will need to refinish the stock.

igotta40 said:

Yes, I saw it, on auction until Monday. It’s very close- RH, SA. It’s for a Featherweight, mine’s a Super Grade. I’m gonna bid on it.

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Good luck, it's been up a few times. I've seen some supergrades come up, as I'm always on the lookout for a nice maple stock that might fit one of my guns.......be kinda cool to drop my Ridgeline into a maple stock.

Hard to imagine a break like this happening from just falling on the floor.
It looks more like it fell on the floor and your pet elephant stomped on it.
Termites maybe?

igotta40 said:

It’s a Winchester model 70 Super Grade Maple .243

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Shoulda got the French Walnut. Just kidding; I'm so sorry that happened to your rifle -- that's one of my favorite calibers and rifles of all time.

Please update us how and when you get this unfortunate occurrence fixed.

That’s a beautiful stock. I would be sick. It will end up well enough I’m sure.

Since stock replacement is an issue, why not look into a laminate stock? They can be pretty, extremely hard, versatile and reasonably priced. On the other-hand there are stock repair people that can fix that stock to the point where the repair is invisible and as you say the repair is harder than the original wood..

It’s repairable but will show a little. Stay away from wood glues. They dry to brittle and will not hold up to recoil.
I’ve posted on how to make these types of repairs and have done very many over the years.
It’s a repair that I wouldn’t mind doing, but I have to many things going on right now. If you would like me to repair it, give me a couple of months and I should be free.

If it broke that easily you needed a new stock anyways.

If it happened unseen inside a gun sock I would be very suspicious somebody took the rifle horse packing without your permission, had a horse roll on it, and put it back in the gun sock with a little superglue!

H&R Glock said:

Hard to imagine a break like this happening from just falling on the floor.
It looks more like it fell on the floor and your pet elephant stomped on it.
Termites maybe?

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Or it dried out and became brittle. Used to be an issue when folks still used wood hockey sticks.

Bwana John said:

If it broke that easily you needed a new stock anyways.

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I'm leaning towards bad grain in the wood itself. That part of the stock is very thin and with the trigger guard cutout there's not much left. I don't know if I trust that spot even if the fix worked. Done a lot of woodworking and glue ups. Made custom circular staircase handrails and arched trim. Hard to get enough glue without it oozing out when clamped....and the clamping is as important as the glue. A decent repair would be difficult without refining the stock to some content....and then every time you shot it , you hold your breath and hope it holds. The dowel or other mechanical fasteners would certainly help, bnut the drilling of a hole big enough for a decent dowel would also weaken that thin part of the stock. IMHO, the hassle of trying to make the fix work and look good along with wondering if it was gonna last, would make the price of a new stock seem cheap. I'd personally go laminate or synthetic if I was going to keep that same small profile on the grip area.

GunnyUSMC said:

It’s repairable but will show a little. Stay away from wood glues. They dry to brittle and will not hold up to recoil.
I’ve posted on how to make these types of repairs and have done very many over the years.
It’s a repair that I wouldn’t mind doing, but I have to many things going on right now. If you would like me to repair it, give me a couple of months and I should be free.

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I don't know man, wood glues are extremely strong when you have good surface contact and firm clamping. I'm sitting next to a guitar right now that had its headstock snapped clean off, that I repaired with Elemers Yellow Wood Glue. It has constant string tension on it, that generates considerably more force than a rifle under recoil.
The hardest part about odd shapes is clamping them securely, not the glue itself.

I'd drill a couple shallow holes for dowel pins, load up the break with glue on both sides and clamp the hell out of it. Lots of arsenal-repaired milsurps live long lives repaired in such a manner.

MikeInOr said:

My first thought is to use a 2 part epoxy... but PVA wood glues are stronger than the wood pieces they hold together and would probably penetrate the wood fiber better. (Titebond III)

I think I would glue the 2 pieces together. After the glue dries and the 2 pieces line up seamlessly I would remove the grip cap and drill a hole up through the stock across the break and glue in a dowel to reenforce it if you feel it needs some extra strength. Leave the dowel long so you can saw it off flush with the bottom of the grip after the glue for the dowel dries.

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Drill holes for your dowel pins before you reglue the break. Use them to reinforce the joint. You could also use biscuits for a biscuit joint but I'm not a huge fan, plus you need a biscuit slot cutter.
Then drill the long pilot hole where the cap is and use a long wood screw to give yourself a great deal of internal clamping pressure in addition to the external clamps, then when the glue has set for whatever time it says on the bottle, you can remove the screw and glue in a long, thin dowel to fill the space. Bamboo is a nice choice for this sort of thing. It is roughly as hard as oak but flexible. It also soaks up glue which further stiffens it and makes it unlikely to ever come out.
Then just reinstall the grip cap and nobody will ever know.

You could always reach out to Canyon Custom gun stocks for a new stock. It is a very pricy solution but you would have a beautiful stock to with your handsome rifle.
Www.canyoncreekgunstocks.com

If I were set on using glue I would use gorilla glue. I have had a couple of glue joints fail over the years but never one with gorilla glue and it's waterproof to boot. How to firmly clamp it firmly is the main problem but Ivy MIke has a solution with the long wood screw. If it were mine I would use a slow curing epoxy made by Devcon. I've glued a lot of things over the years with it and nothing has come apart yet.