Horsemany said:
Thanks for all the replies. I have a few questions for you. I am not sure how a McMillan offers more accuracy potential, since I have more than one bone stock Remmy 700 without even bedding in the H-S Precision that shoot in the .2's-.4's with handloads regularly.
Yes, I agree and personally know this is possible, I have several rifles in HS stocks that will perform to this level. My stock LTR .308 shoots this with FGMM 168s, as do several PSS models owned by friends, BUT, only when very carefully shot from a bench. As soon as we get into "real world usage" like hunting, varmint shooting, tactical matches, duty use, etc., the use of improvised positions and variations of rest, bipod, sling and stock pressure points kills it and we see a more realistic accuracy level of up to 1 moa from the same gun. They ARE flexible, too flexible. Better than other stocks on factory guns? Yes. Best there is? No, nor could they be expected to be for half the price.
I mentioned above my 6.5-300 Wby. This rifle was originally built as a 1k match gun, but I put it in an HS stock to use on long range varmints and crop damage deer. It shoots 1/4 moa groups in the Shehane "Tracker" steel-tex bedded laminated stock. In the HS, it still shoots 3/8 moa or better, but, I can change that accuracy level to be more like 1-1/2 moa simply by adding random cheek pressure to the stock that my McM stocked 6.5-284 and Manners stocked .260 don't to react to at all.
The aluminum bedding block (more or less) solves one problem: Bedding, the bane of interfacing to wood and laminate stocks for years. Unfortunately, the aluminum block is surrounded by foam, encased in a thin layer of outer shell material. Neither the foam or thin skin contribute much to the stiffness needed for *consistent* performance.
I am quite serious when I say that the foam core can be dug out with a fingernail. I've cut the LOP on several HS stock to youth proportions and what is exposed is rather enlightening. It won't hold a screw and the recoil pad must be glued back on, as it is when factory installed.
EShell said:
In fairness, the HS unit should indeed be compared to a B&C or Choate stock in the same general price range, since this line of stocks cost half of what one will pay for a bedded McMillan, but, in this case you get what you pay for.
I cannot lump brands together based on prices. If "you get what you pay for" is your greatest attribute there's a problem. Thousands of Savage shooters on this forum would disagree with you. Are you saying a $400Savage performs half as good as an $800 Remington? My point is there are thousands of examples of cheaper products performing better than the alternative.
Rereading exactly what I wrote, you will see that I had clearly said "in this case". . . . I meant that and and fully believe it's true. My statement is not intended to be all inclusive and Savages do happen to represent one of the very rare exceptions when only accuracy is discussed. Even this point could be debatable when the rifle is taken as a whole, with fit, finish and ergonomics considered.
Still no one has explained why the better McMillan is favored to NOT have aluminum pillars in the stock.
They do not come with pillars. The recommended pillar bedding is a method used by the gunsmith/person who beds the rifle, pillars are of custom lengths based upon bottom metal choices, and is additive to the price of the stock. McMs are used mainly in custom rifles, and the normally upgrade bottom metal might be Williams, Badger M-4 or M-5, Seekins or anything but the flimsy aluminum Remington factory offerings, and all will require varying length pillars and inlet depths.
And if the H-S Precision is such a dissapointing stock that some posters will not own one, why have the Police used them for years in the M24's? Isn't that a liability to use such a soft spongy stock? They won't even use handloads for liability reasons.
First, I would only use the word "disappointing" when comparing the HS stocks with the properly bedded McMillan or Manners, which are twice the price and this comparison was the specific subject of the original post. When compared to Choate or B&C or other "drop ins", I would quickly change "disappointing" to "amazingly accurate", but, that wasn't the question.
Then, I would suggest that we cloud the issue when we look at what the police must buy off the shelf under the typically limited budget they are allotted for tactical rifles, rifles they must buy "as is" from the factory. The police use the HS stocked firearms for exactly the same reason the US Army uses them - they're available configured by Remington at "reasonable" cost. If you look at Remington's other factory offerings (wood, laminated wood, monolithic plastics ("Tupperware")), the HS is quite clearly the best choice and it is then easy to see why the various police departments would select them over other offerings.
Conversely, when we look at what is available in *custom* match, hunting and tactical rifles, which are the main outlet for McM stocks, or look at high dollar packages offered by McMillan (McBros), for example, or even when we look at what the USMC does when they build their own sniper rifles, we see an entirely different trend.
If Remington offered their LTR and PSS on McMillan M40 and A-5 stocks at pricing similar to HS, I suspect that the police and Army might reconsider their current choices in factory rifles.
It would appear my gunsmith's opinion is the opposite of the majority here. I thought that was the case and that's why I posed the question.
And the statement made by your gunsmith, who may otherwise be an excellent smith, illustrates that his own experience with properly installed McMillan and other upgrade stocks is rather thin. When he says "soft" in reference to McM, he's looking at the substrate (fiberglass) compared to aluminum. When he says "hard" in reference to HS, he's looking at the aluminum pillar portion of the bedding block compared to F/G. Would he happen to compare pillars to pillars, there would be no difference at all. Were he to compare substrate to substrate *solid F/G to foam), HS would be "soft".
I cannot disagree with any posters here since I don't own a McMillan(I've shot a few). I thought there would be more definate advantages rather than preference or opinion.
The definite advantage is that under field use, the McM outperforms the HS Precision stock. While the HS stock has definite advantages over it's usual competitors (wood/synthetic monolithic plastics/laminates/Choate/Bell&Carlson), is is just in a completely different league than McMillan, which are quite solid, hard & rigid, all desirable attributes when we talk of rifles that must be 100% stable under adverse conditions.
As may be seen below, I have two McMillan stocks, one Manners stock and a half dozen or more HS stocks. I'm not so disappointed in HS that I won't own or shoot one, but, I DO recognize that it has limitations. Cost no object, ALL of my precision rifle stocks would be Manners and McMillan. One of my McMillans is a retired USMC M40A1 sniper stock that saw 30 years of military use and it's in better shape than my first HS stock, which has seen 10 years of hunting. My personal experience with all of these stocks shapes my opinion that, while the HS units "ain't bad", they DO have their points of vulnerability.