doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DIY Gunsmithing @ doublegunshop.com rifle stock warp help

Hi All,

I am building a rifle for my daughter, I have a Radom Mauser barreled action in 308 and a semi-inletted stock
that seems to have some warpage issues, the forend seems to want to warp upward and the more wood I remove from the forend tip
the more it warps upward. What is a good way to fix this?

I was thinking of milling a slot in the barrel channel to relieve some of the stress, steaming the forend and then reassembling the rifle with
a shim between the barrel and barrel channel Then if that removed the warp, putting glass bedding in the slot and barrel channel.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

PhysDoc

How about cutting a slot inside the barrel channel, then glass bedding an aluminium bar or rail into the slot to stiffen the forend?

Post a picture of the stock, both sides, end grain.

I once bought a new lightweight Winchester Model 70 in .280 with a factory laminated stock free freefloating stock to use as a travel rifle. I sighted in the gun in KY, travelled to Wyoming, sighted in the rifle and it was 1-1/2" high at 100yds. Two days later, hit an antelope dead center at 125. The next day, I shot twice at a mule deer at 100 off a rest and missed so far the deer only looked up. I shot a third time and held even with it's breast and made a heart shot. I suspected I had banged the scope but later examination showed the previously floating barrel was in tight contact with the stock. Tagged out so I cased the gun and came home. A couple of days later I went to the range to re-zero and the first shot was exactly 1-1/2" high. The stock was obviously unstable and changing climates had induced a warp. Even laminated stocks are not immune.

I have built 50-100 custom rifles in the last 40 years including many custom unlimited target rifles, and I no longer trust wooden stocks at all with inletting around the barrel. If you are going to use a wooden stock it should be freefloated to the extreme. That is what I do with target rifles (use a 1-1/4" barrel channel).

For the stock you have, if you can detect warpage and it not even fitted, I would not spend any time on it. Mauser stocks semi-inletted are readily available on eBay and I would simply buy another one. Working on a stock that has a warpage issue is not worth it unless it is an exceptional piece of wood. Even then it is more likely you will always have problems if the grain is fancy.

An upward warp is the worst case for accuracy. The only two things that will help are carbon fiber threads or tape on the outside and bottom which will look terrible or inset a thin vertical aluminum or stainless bar into the bottom of the forearm groove set in epoxy. If this asporter stock it is doubtful that this will be tall enough to give much resistance but it is the right direction.

Steaming the forend will likely cause more movement in the direction of the bend. I don't believe the groove will help any (it is in the wrong plane to take any pressure off the bend. If you want to try, I think you need to just try a steam bend downward. Based on my experience with boatbuilding, I would try a boiling water bath for 30 or 45 minutes with the fore end submerged and then clamping it upside down on a table top with a small block under it at each end of the barrel channel. That will give it a small reverse curve to hopefully spring back to straight after drying and cooling under clamp pressure. Given the flexibility of a barrel I don't think you can bring it straight with clamping it into the barrel. Start with small blocks and retry with larger is you don't end up where you need to be.

Good information but would still like to see your wood. In a static environment I would not expect that much movement. Every piece of wood is an entity unto itself.

I ll start by saying I’m not a stock maker . I have done a lot of woodworking. It sounds like the wood is not fully seasoned. Trying to force wood to do things against its will is like fighting Mother Nature. I think letting the wood become fully seasoned and stable then re inlet the wood and glass bed and finish would be better than forcing it to do something it doesn’t want to do.

Again I’m not a stock maker!

Good luck.

Hi All,

Thanks for the replies, here the weather is overcast and while I tried to take pictures, they came out so dark as to be useless
when we get some sunshine I will try again. Thanks AGS, before I give up on the stock, I will try your idea. I have twin chldren,
a girl and a boy. They were born premature, and about two days before the doc told us they needed to be delivered that day. I bid on two stocks in one lot and a bunch of other stuff. The stocks therefore have some sentimental value. They are at least 11 years old.

PhysDoc

I understand the sentiment.

My Dad was a 5 year WWII vet. He died in 1982. Years later I was building a Ruger No. 1 total custom (metal and wood) in the style of a early 20th century British African single shot. It was built on the action of a gun I owned which I loaned him for what turned out to be his last deer hunt (still have the fired case). I happened to locate, and puchase, a nice piece of French walnut milled in the 50's from trees in a walnut grove decimated by the panzer divisions in the latter part of the war. The guy I bought it from had purchased it in the 60's in a Paris gunsmith shop while on vacation. It had 10 years of weights and dates noted in pencil on it to track drying(in European nomenclature). There was no question what blank I was going to use for the 300 H&H. His old Ruger 22 he used on his trapline went to his only grandson. Sentimentality is often a big decision in gun purchases and choices.

AGS, Good on you.
Mike

Probably not an answer to warping, but twice I have seen stocks in bolt action rifles "seem" to warp after shooting. The actual culprit was the screw from the front of the trigger guard into the receiver. That screw was too long to fit the wood so that no matter how much it was tightened the screw could not tighten the receiver to the wood. The results were patterns that wandered from the initial shot.