Duffle cut stock repair

Some may ask , what is a duffle cut or why is it called a duffle cut.
During WWII many guns were brought home from the war. Back then you didn’t have to fill out paperwork to bring or send a gun home. G.I.’s and Marines would just bring them home in their Duffle bags, most often. The problem was that most rifles were to long to fit into a Duffle bag so, they would take the barreled action out of the stock and cut the stock at the rear barrel band. This way the stock and barreled action would fit in the bag.
Many of these rifles were put back together without making repairs to the stocks. Some were repaired good and some not so good. The problem with repairing Duffle cut stocks is making sure that everything fits when the repairs art done. The main issue I’d the missing wood from the saw cut. I have repaired some that were missing as much as 1/4 inch of wood.
Some repairs require that you replace the missing wood and some you don’t have to. In this topic I’ll show two repairs where one will have the wood added and the other not.

Here’s the first victim is an Italian M41 Infantry rifle. This is one that will need the missing wood replaced because there is a band spring that holds the rear barrel band in place.


The hard part is figuring out how thick you will need to make the replacement piece. It’s best to cut it a little thicker and then trim it to fit.


I cut several slices of wood from an old stock and got one that was very close.


I then used epoxy to attach the piece to the stock. I sat a weight on top of the piece while the epoxy cured.


After the epoxy cured, I trimmed the piece so that the barrel band would fit and cut the slot for the band spring.
The next part can get a little tricky. This is figuring out where to drill your dowel holes. O this stock I had to avoid the cleaning rod channel and the band spring slot.


I marked the stock and drilled two 1/4 inch holes for the dowels. I then inserted marking studs to mark where I would drill the holes on the front half.




Getting these holes just right can be a challenge, even when you have the barreled action. This is simply to over come by drilling your holes just a little over sized.
Here you see one hole drilled and if you look close, you can see the mark for the other hole.

Next is to test fit the parts to make sure that they lie up.


Once things are Lind up, I applied some wax to the outside of the stock to keep the epoxy resin from getting on places I didn’t want it.


Even applied wax into the band spring slot.


Next the epoxy was mixed and applied to the stock. The barreled action was put into the stock After the parts were put together, and tapped in place.


Here it is after the epoxy was cured. No it is time to dress up the repair.

To dress up the repair I mixed some sanding dust with some epoxy resin and applied it to the stock. Once ti was cured, I used hand files to dress up the repair.



A little stain was used to help blend the repair.

And here it is all finished. Tom’s 1/3 Mix was applied after the repairs were done.

Here’s the second repair on a Belgian M1889 Mauser.
The holes were drilled.


Dowels and epoxy added.


Barrel jacket used to line everything up and then tapped in place.


Final fitting.


Re- drilling the hole fro the cleaning rod.


All finished.

And all back together.

Bitrclngr said:

Both rifles the rifles are mine and I'm happy they have been fixed. I bought both rifles about 3 years ago. I knew the Carcano M41 was cut when I bought it at a gunshow. The Belgian M1889 was an online auction find lumped together with a sporterized Argentine Mauser. I was unaware of the duffle cut until I had it in hand. It didn't bother me that it was cut and the bore is excellent. I can't thank gunny enough for all he's done for me over the years.

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That’s what friends do Matt.
You forgot to tell them that I really don’t like doing Duffle cut repairs.