Boyds wood stocks.

Tucker25 said:

Who did that? You or someone else? And also in person di you think it looks weird or ugly?

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I did it, in person you really don't notice it. From a few feet away you can't even see it either. It feels nice and gripy, and comes not cover up nice grain in the wood. I could have added more texture but I knocked the sharp edges off some.

I like how it came out, on the forend I would have made it come up the sides more But I still get a good grasp

bangswitch said:

I figure, as long as it ain't touching, it's floating.

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Just FYI - the key to free-floating isn't whether it's touching at rest but whether it touches during firing, as the barrel vibrates around. You need to allow enough clearance to ensure that the barrel never touches the forearm during firing.

Floating is also about airflow. We want enough room to allow convection to flow hot air away from the otherwise insulated surfaces of the barrel so we get uniform heating and expansion of the barrel.

Tucker25 said:

How about with gloves on? Was it easy to finish? as i have 0 experience with finishing stocks

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I guess it would depend on the type of gloves used. My gloves are usually leather, and the stock finish isn't slippery with them.

If you have any experience finishing wood, it's easy. But it is time consuming, I only put one coat of oil on a day, then let it cure to the next day. Then I sand the stock by hand with steel wool to get rid of any contaminates that may have stuck to the finish before it dries. Repeat the process until you have the desired finish.
For a matte finish, sand the stock with steel wool after the last coat is applied.
For a gloss finish, don't sand it after the last coat is applied.

Note - I order all of my stocks from Boyd's - Unfinished, They actually charge you extra not to finish a stock, but I've never liked the finish that they put on their stocks. That's why I do it myself.

Varminterror said:

Floating is also about airflow. We want enough room to allow convection to flow hot air away from the otherwise insulated surfaces of the barrel so we get uniform heating and expansion of the barrel.

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The thumbhole stock I have from Boyds has a channel under the barrel and is ventilated on both sides. I can't see how much heat can accumulate around that barrel; plus, I stop shooting when the barrel is still cool enough to keep your hand on, I never let a barrel get too hot to touch.

bangswitch said:

The thumbhole stock I have from Boyds has a channel under the barrel and is ventilated on both sides. I can't see how much heat can accumulate around that barrel; plus, I stop shooting when the barrel is still cool enough to keep your hand on, I never let a barrel get too hot to touch.

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Most boyds stocks have that groove, but many if not most others do not. I usually open the sides of my boyds till there is a 1-8" gap, and the tip sides/bottom the same.

@bangswitch

1) Heating air expands

2) Hot air rises

Given appropriate free float, those vents will actually draw in cool air as hot air rises from the barrel channel. But with an undersized barrel channel, the air can’t move so easily, and hot air predominately stagnates, self-insulating the barrel, and a little heat squeezes out of the vents as it expands and squeezes itself like toothpaste in the undersized barrel channel.

The trough in the barrel channel actually works against cooling - it’s a large air mass which can’t move. It heats up easier than wood, but air is a better insulator than wood, so that heat sticks around longer than it would if the heat-sink of the wood were closer. Holding heat MUCH longer than if appropriate convection were allowed by a proper channel gap...

rbernie said:

I will say this for the Boyds - the inletting is well done and you won't have to touch it unless you want to bed the action or install pillars.

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That doesn’t always hold true. I have three Boyd’s stocks and two of them required work on the inletting. I consider their stocks to be something to turn into a nice stock without having to do a lot of heavy duty wood removal.

I've only bought a Boyd's stock once, but I was pleased with it. However, it was a laminate. It replaced the craptastic plastic stock on an Axis, so it was a dramatic transformation, but I can't speak to their solid wood stocks. I have been thinking about a solid wood replacement for my Spanish Mauser scout rifle from them. It wouldn't need to be anything fancy though...

Here's the Axis.

doubleh said:

That doesn’t always hold true. I have three Boyd’s stocks and two of them required work on the inletting. I consider their stocks to be something to turn into a nice stock without having to do a lot of heavy duty wood removal.

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I think it can kinda depend on luck, and how much tinkering they have done with the design.

On 700s i havent had to fit anything, but every Ruger American ive put in a boyds needed some fitting around the magazine wells. The Arisaka stock I got was a perfect drop in.

oh the savage was also drop in.

The first one I bought worked right out of their box and was nicely shaped. Of course I had to remove some wood and epoxy bed the action and just a little of the barrel but I could have left it alone and it would have been OK. The bedding job did improve the rifles accuracy though and I do it to every rifle I buy. The next needed wood removed to get the action in place plus the fore end was much thicker on one side than the other and the cheek piece and grip was just clunky and ill defined. Having plenty of excess wood I went to work reshaping it and wound up with a nice looking and fitting stock and of course it got the epoxy bedding treatment. The last one was for a Savage MK II 22 rimfire. I have never seen as much wood in a 22 rimfire stock as that one had. I really don't want a 16" non bull barreled 22 that weighs 9 pounds which that one did with a fair sized scope. I believe they make that basic stock big enough for every rifle they offer it for and just inlet it for for whatever action you want. After a serious session in my milling machine and then some work with an angle grinder fitted with a sanding pad for the HD work I finished up with hand tools and removed over a pound of material which resulted in a stock with better lines and feel. It still isn't a light weight but I don't intend to carry it very far at at a time. The thing I like about them is they are made from good material and very little is needed in the inletting department. Shaping the outside to be what I want is easy and the price isn't bad either.

I don’t recall the last time I bought a Boyd’s stock, out of a few dozen, which didn’t need at least a little fitting. Every 10/22 stock I have bought from them had an undersized magwell, all of the Ruger M77 stocks I have bought from them needed the tang relieved and the bolt handle cut cleaned up. My Bmag stock was exceptionally close, but needed some clearance work around the tang and didn’t have contact under much of the action.

Thankfully so, in my opinion. They use a minimum spec action inlet, which means every rifle CAN fit with minimal chisel work, rather than requiring bedding to tighten up an oversized inlet.

I just ordered a Boyd’s classic nutmeg laminate for my M-70 Super Shadow 7mm RM. The synthetic stock on it had a sling swivel stud pull out of the forearm and it sort of looks cheesy with the name molded into the stock.

When it comes in I’ll post what it looks like.

Stay safe.

I like mine on my Axis II 6.5CM:



I too am curious as to how their wood stocks are.

I purchased a used Savage left handed 111 package in a .30-06 from a guy that claimed he needed more rifle to hunt MN whitetail, and was letting it go for a song. Gave me a box of cartridges with 6 missing, said that was all he'd fired. I figured for $250 I couldn't go wrong. Put a Boyd's laminated "pepper" stock on it for $100 or so, and shot up the rest of the box of ammo, and was pretty impressed. The stock was literally "drop in", with no fitting required.

Varminterror said:

The trough in the barrel channel actually works against cooling - it’s a large air mass which can’t move. It heats up easier than wood, but air is a better insulator than wood, so that heat sticks around longer than it would if the heat-sink of the wood were closer. Holding heat MUCH longer than if appropriate convection were allowed by a proper channel gap...

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There is an easy way around that. I mill slots in the bottom of the fore end along with side slots to increase air flow. A wide gap around the barrel definately increases air flow but I opt for around 1/16 inch for looks and just shoot a little slower.

@doubleh - I concur with ~1/16” of clearance for free-floating barrels, as I’ve less directly noted even within this thread:

bangswitch said:

You can slide a sheet of printer paper between the barrel and fore-end, but not two sheets, it's that close.

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Varminterror said:

An appropriate free float should allow 10-15 sheets of paper.

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10-15 sheets of printer paper = ~1/16”. You’ll find I’m quite consistent about this across dozens of forums, hundreds of threads, over about 20 years.