Well here's my first crack at a "build " thread. It's not much of a build more of simple modifications to improve a cheap rifle. Will post pics and update when additional work is done to the rifle.
Some background:
As many of my east coast brethren can attest ,our woods are dense and most shots are sub 50 yards. My goal was a economical ,nice handling ,some what light rifle that you're not afraid to beat up and hunt hard with. I wanted a short barrel, stainless, synthetic stock rifle for my timber rifle. I'm calling it a timber rifle because many see a brush gun is a big bore lever gun and I don't want to project the wrong image/classification,which is subjective to begin with,so timber rifle is the nick name I gave it.
I sold off my Tikka t3x 7mm-08 with a Leupold vx3i 2.5-8 to a good friend for a fair price. Owed him some cash for a couple sets of tickets,so called the tickets even and still had 600 hundred to play with. Yes the Tikka was a phenomenal rifle,and the setup I had was an excellent whitetail chaser.wont argue there. However multiple trecks this hunting season into the real thick stuff had me wishing for a shorter rifle. Another issue was the length of pull. I found it cumbersome when sitting in a tree stand with my heavy winter gear on. In order to shoulder the rifle you have to push it out and away from you to clear your clothes before shouldering. So I compact stock that's 1.25" shorter really helps with that and shortens the OAL of the rifle.
The rifle I choose was a Ruger American compact. Stainless in .308.price as right,they have a good reputation, the 12.5" LOP and 18" barrel made the rifle 6-6.5" shorter than the Tikka. I chose .308 because it's easy to find ammo,cheap, and does decent in a short barrel.
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Next was addressing some short comings. First thing was smoothing out the bolt. A good cleaning ,proper lube and a few hundred cycles helped that out.
Second was addressing the forearm stiffness and maximize barrel clearance for free floating. Compared to my father's American which had the "t" style supports ,the "x" style webbing of my forearm was stiffer but still left something to be desired. So I decided to kill two birds with one stone,stiffen the forearm and improve the rifle balance. My plan was to epoxy in a carbon fiber arrow with jb weld. I had 3 extra packages of jb weld from work and an arrow that the knock blew out of,so this mod was free.99.
Fist notched out the supports for the arrow. I cut a small 1/8" detent into the recoil lug to ensure a tight supportive fit. I also made sure to rough up all surfaces that I planned on laying the JB weld so it would bond and form a mechanical lock.
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Next I cut the arrow a little long and sanded the tail end to adjust for a tight fit. Also sanded the front end at slight angles to squeeze into the" x" of the cross webbing.
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Next I mixed up my jb weld layed a little in the bottom of the forearm,inserted the arrow,and finished filling with jb weld. Here's the end product . I would have filled the front compartment but ran out of jb. I think the added weight from 6tubes of jb weld help with the balance a bit. The rifle feels much more solid and flexes about as much as my cz 527s wood stock.the flex occures from the thin area near the recoil lug,not the for arm.
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After the JB was all cured I sanded down the barrel channel to maximize clearance. I used 120 grit sandpaper paper I had laying around wrapped around 1/2" pipe. Once clearance was adequate,I sanded with 400 grit to clean it up. Have plenty of clearance now. The stock can be forced to touch the barrel,but it will not occurrence under any normal shooting circumstances. I can fit a business card between the stock and barrel all the way down while the rifle is sitting on a rest.Same goes for a dollar bill folded over itself twice
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