Rifle stocks

[maxxhavoc]

I have gotten grief from purists on my laminate M1 Garand stock. I really don’t care. Let ‘em whine. It’s mine and I love that rifle.

Who makes that? I like it, it would be very nice for a CMP special.

 

[Bull72]

I like the looks of wood.
I like the reliability of synthetic.
I adjust the balance of all my rifles. So natural balance doesn't factor in.

It's always good to find balance

 

[Bull72]

I like blue steel and walnut on my lever guns. But I ordered a Brown Precision stock for my Remington 700 in 1983 and haven't hunted with a wood stocked bolt rifle since. You couldn't pay me enough to get me to go back to wood on a bolt gun. Currently all of my bolt rifles have either McMillan Edge stocks made with Kevlar or factory synthetic stocks.

A backpack hunt into a wilderness area in 1977 set the wheels in motion for me. By the time I got back my wood stock looked like it had been attacked by a rabid beaver from the steel buckles of 1970's era packs. And I was looking for something lighter. Within a few years I started looking at the aftermarket fiberglass options that were just coming on the market. There were no options for factory synthetics.

Why?

Any synthetic stock, even the cheap factory stocks are tougher than wood. They are also going to be more stable over changing environmental conditions. Wood can be just as accurate, but as temperature, humidity, and altitude change the moisture naturally inside a wood stock expands and contracts causing the point of impact to change. The rifle may still shoot the same size groups, but those groups will be somewhere else on the target. Sometimes the difference is minimal, other times it can be 6".

If I leave my home here in GA at 1000' elevation, 85 degrees, and 80% humidity and travel to CO and hunt at 11,000' elevation, 20 degrees and 20% humidity chances are good my wood stocked rifle is no longer hitting where I'm aiming. Chances are very good my synthetic stocked rifle is.

For years shooters and gunsmiths used fiberglass to bed rifles in wood stocks to help prevent this. Someone finally decided it would be better to just build the entire stock from fiberglass.

Synthetic can be lighter, but don't assume they are. In fact most synthetics, factory and aftermarket are going to weigh the same if not more than wood. With aftermarket stocks the cheaper or mid grade stocks costing around $300 or less typically are heavier than wood. Most factory synthetics will be about the same weight or slightly less. You don't see significant weight reduction until you get to the aftermarket stocks made from Kevlar.

It's not that I don't appreciate good looking wood, I do. But there is nothing special about 95% of the wood put on most guns anymore. I burn a few truck loads of wood in my heater every winter, much of it looks as good or better than what is on most rifles anymore.

I live in Pennsylvania and most of are rifle deer season it rains we used to get snow but not much anymore I bought a win 270 with a synthetic stock back in the 90's and I didn't like it and I have not bought one since I mostly hunt with my Parker Hale 30-06 now but I have a few different calibers to choose from and everyone has a wooden stock I don't go on hunting trips afar off so my wooden stocks are doing me well but if I was to go out west or far north I probably would look into a synthetic stock because I would not want to damage my wooden stocks I would never argue that synthetic holds up better in the worst possible hunting conditions

 

[Llama Bob]

I have a couple hunting rifles that are very weatherproof. They've got Manners and Bell and Carlson stocks and ferritic nitrocarburized finishes. Everything else is wood stocked with metal in the bedding as needed. I just make sure it's well oiled and I've never really had a problem, but I don't hunt costal conditions or anything like that.

 

[Bull72]

I have a couple hunting rifles that are very weatherproof. They've got Manners and Bell and Carlson stocks and ferritic nitrocarburized finishes. Everything else is wood stocked with metal in the bedding as needed. I just make sure it's well oiled and I've never really had a problem, but I don't hunt costal conditions or anything like that.

I live in Pennsylvania and my wooden stocks have served me well

 

[Pat Riot]

Who makes that? I like it, it would be very nice for a CMP special.

I had the stock done 25 years ago. There was a gunsmith that we called “Sarge” who had a business called “Sergeant At Arms”. He built accurized M1As and Garands. I am pretty sure the stock is a Boyd’s stock but he bedded it for me and did some work to the gun to make it more accurate. I also had it rebarreled to .308.
It is still as solid as the day I brought it home from his shop.

 

[Random 8]

Just never been able to like plastic stocks on a hunting rifle. I suffer them on my NM AR15, but even there if there was a good wood alternative, I'd probably shoot it. I have cheap plastic on my knock around AR. That's just what it wears. Outside of those, every rifle I own has a wooden stock. Wood just feels and looks right to me on a hunting rifle. I do have a synthetic stocked shotgun that gets used primarily for waterfowl. I consider this a tool, subject to all manner of abuse, so synthetic is practical. I suppose if I were a hunting guide or subsistence hunter in Alaska or the Mountain west, I might drift towards a quality synthetic simply for the practicality aspect.

As things sit, my hunting rifles wear pretty nice wood, as does my upland shotgun. Just the way I'm wired. Synthetics feel soul-less in my hands. I think part of my problem is that I like to buy rifles with good bores but all the collectability scratched out of them, then take a wood rasp and sandpaper to the stocks to fit me. Can't get that with a synthetic.

 

[Space Ghost]

I don't mind a synthetic, plastic, fiberglass, composite stock, IF it's done nicely, and there's a reason for it.

These can be very light weight, stable (if done right) not bothered by temperature swings or moisture, adjustable, made into modular chassis systems... Problem is, most times that reason is just plain old cheaper manufacturing costs. This doesn't lead to a quality product, so most times... no.

I just pieced together a nice (I think so) multi purpose rifle out of a basket case Swedish Mauser. I could have looked for a new barrel, replacement factory stock to restore it, or an el-cheepo plastic stock, to sporterize it, but I wanted to stay with wood, so I went with one from Boyd's. A lot of people will still call it a "bubba special" but at least it looks, and feels like a rifle should. Something about wood, and steel...When you have a connection to the craftsmanship that went into making it, you feel the importance of every shot you make with it.

 

[WVRJ]

I absolutely love to see French walnut with Fluer-de-lis checkering and cold rust blued steel.I love to see it in a display rack or in pictures.The craftsmanship of a well done wood rifle stock is truly an art.But for my real rifles,fiberglass,stainless steel and paint are an art unto themselves.Back in 1978,I bought a M700 BDL in 270.It had a 4X12X44 Tasco scope with a sunshade and an embossed leather sling with shearling wool padding,and I was as in love with it as I was with my first Playboy magazine.What a miserable hunting rifle it was.The scope had about 1/2 an inch of eye relief and I don't know of any stock that is as poorly designed for mitigating recoil as the BDL.I polished the high gloss wood often and kept it shiny as a mirror.I guess I wanted to make sure the deer could make sure it was me so they could go hide at the first glint off of the stock.It liked to shift quite often,so it had to be zeroed frequently.When I was hunting with it,I was watching what I was doing with it so much that I wasn't watching for deer.In 1980,my first custom rifle was being built.H-S Precision fiberglass stock,bead blasted metal that was blued to a dull finish and a Leupold scope.That rifle setup held its zero for 28 years until I upgraded the scope.Nowadays,I like to use old fiberglass stocks that I reshape into well fitting,functional works of art that aren't at all pretty,but they fit me perfectly and are dirt cheap but high performance.I don't worry about them getting scratched,and the stability is unmatched.A good way to start off spring is to pick 5 rifles and take them to the range and shoot 1 shot with each one at the same target and see what the group looks like.Mine are usually less than an inch.Wood stocked bolt guns won't do that.