glass bedded wood stock vs. sythnetic?

[Kaylee]

So.. if I get a really nice walnut or striped maple stock, and get a professional fiberglass bedding job done on it.. will the zero be as weather independent as a sythetic? If not, what about a bedded laminated wood?

Or is it just not possible to have your cake and eat it to?

(Rifle is an M1A, by the way)

Thanks!

-K

 

[Art Eatman]

I've found that if the wood stock is reasonably well sealed with some appropriate was, it's fairly impervious to changes in humidity. Short-term exposure to wet weather during hunting has never been a problem.

For something like a military-style rifle with all that wood, I'd probably leave the front barrel bands and suchlike as loose as possible. That way, there would be less tendency to "bind" during a long string of fire with the different rates of dimensional change as the rifle heats up.

Art

 

[riddleofsteel]

Wood is not the inferior stock material many would have you believe.

My gunsmith has a commercial Mauser action chambered in a .270-.300 Magnum wildcat. It is carefully glass & steel pillar bedded into a fantastic looking fancy rosewood Fajen Rhinehart stock with an aluminum stiff-arm installed in the forend. It is finished with several dozen coats of Tru-Oil. According to him, the zero has not shifted once in two decades of deer hunting in all weather conditions from wet sea level Carolina swamps to the Arizona desert to high in the Colorado mountains.

A good friend of mine glass and aluminum pillar bedded his 30-06 Remington BDL soon after buying it in 1978. He hunted with it for years with no problem for years until the varnish wore off of the forend due to being carried in a truck window rifle carrier. When the bare wood was exposed the forend started taking on water swelled up and pressed on the barrel, shiffing the zero. We hogged out the barrel channel, installed a stiff-arm rod, stripped the stock and refinished it with Tru-Oil. No problems since.

My newest rifle is one I had been looking for for many years. It is a Remington Classic in 6.5 X 55 with a nice oil finished American walnut stock. I took it unfired to my gunsmith (Bills Custom Guns Greensboro, N.C.) and he installed an aluminum stiff-arm rod in the forend, steel pillar and glass bedded it, tip to tang. I installed a Leupold scope base, Millet engraved rings and a Leupold 3.5 X 10 Vari X III scope. I look forward to many years of trouble free and cosmetically pleasing service.

Here's to having cake and eating it to.

 

[Salt]

Wood is better for hunting in the really cold weather because wood will warm up in your hands.

The fiberglass stocks will not only stay cold, they will make your hands cold from handling the gun.

 

[MeekAndMild]

I'm down on wood stocks this year. Now my Marlin has a crack in its forend, the price of living in air conditioning in a humid subropical area. If there was no problem with wood then why don't they make credit cards out of it?

 

[Ledbetter]

Wood or plastic--stiffness is the factor

Laminated wood stocks can be very stiff, reducing torque and movement when the gun is fired. Stiffness is a prime quality for stock choice, I believe.

The way to weatherproof wood is to fully coat it with polyurethane (after it's inletted and bedded) and then add coats of tung oil. As noted, if the raw wood is exposed, the wood will start changing with the humidity, or swell and crack.

A new coat of tung oil every year is a good idea for your rifle stocks.

 

[Art Eatman]

MeekAndMild, a wooden credit card of wood be subject to termites, and it wooden't take the magnetic strip. D:

"Gunsmith's Kinks" has lots of tips on what to do to finish or waterproof wooden stocks...

Art