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.

Thank you AGS

I boiled the stock yesterday and have it secured to a table with a shim pushing the forend tip. How long do you recommend leaving it like that?

Thanks again


PhysDoc

Should be good to go. Once the wood cools, the lignin bonds harden and everything is pretty much as it will be, though there may be some spring back when you release it.

Could you please explain this to me. An 11 yo blank should be stable for the environment it has been stored in. It moved when working it. Now boiling/steaming it and clamping it will cure that? I would still like to see the blank in question and the clamping device. Quater sawn, slab sawn or rift sawn? Hoping someone can enlighten me.

I think what he has a piece of wood with stresses built into. It was at a stable equilibrium before he started whittling. As he shaves away wood, the balance of power changes within the stick and things begin to move. Action wood. Limb wood can be like that.

Limb wood can be like that.
Proper layout minimizes this possibility. Layout trumps figure every time. Hopefully PhysDoc can get some pictures posted.

Hi All

Ok,the stock shows some signs of improvement, I was a bit tentative in my first attempt, the stock is boiling as I write this.
Prior to posting this thread, I saw this video which deals with an attempt to fix stock warp. What AGS wrote makes a bit more
sense to me than the variation used in the video. Thank you once again AGS

Mauser sporter stock warp

Ok here are some pictures of the stock





sorry they aren't better,

here is a picture of my boiling set up, it keeps the forend tip from touching the bottom of the post.



And here is a picture of it clamped, the wooden boarded is bolted to the table of my milling machine, the stock is held in place by
bolts going through the triggerguard, and the rubber tubing

Is the tubing going to be strong enough? Perhaps a board across the stock and clamped to the table with C clamps on either side? I would think you would want more pressure than that tubing will supply.

Looks like there is some figure in that wood.

I got the idea for the rubber tubing from the video I referenced above, it is worth watching and gives one a much better appreciation for the problem than I have described here.

The video is interesting - his rabbit holes always are. I wonder how that gun managed to ever stay straight and what caused it suddenly "take off to the left". I think I would have given up on it early on.

I see lots of knots and slab sawn wood. Other than that cannot tell much of the grain flow through the forend. Let us know how the fix works, I'm curious to know if it will stay put.

Yes, I will keep you all updated, it means a lot to me when people give me good advice and share memories that are special
to them. Thanks AGS for your advice and the memories of the Ruger you built as a way of remembering your dad(I would love to see pictures)
and to Mike (der Ami) for what he wrote about his dad on the thread about the CVA kit I worked on with and for my son.


For what it is worth, way back when not as many people were atune to gunbroker, I picked up deals. I found a Radom actioned Mauser in 308, with the date
of 1932, which was the year my mom, who was of Polish descent, told me she was born. The stock was so so, but I always thought of it as the Rosalie (my mom's first name) rifle. After she passed in 2011, I learned she was born in 31, but didn't want me to know she was a year older than my father. When the twins came along in 2013, we named our daughter Audrey Marie (Marie being my mom's middle name). Like I wrote earlier, I won an auction lot consisting of two identically styled stocks the week the twins were born. Neither the stocks nor the figure is all that great, the timing is the key issue. They are getting the best of all the things I found, case-colored Niedner buttplates, etc.

As for the stock, it has both an upward warp and a lateral warp, I boiled it again this morning and mounted the stock on the table of my milling machine
I used a shim to increase the pressure against the upward warp and used the quill of my milling machine to exert some lateral pressure. The next key thing,
assuming that this works is stablize the stock using a combination of metal and bedding compound.

PhysDoc

PhysDoc,
It may work, you will only know by trying. The important thing is you are building them, yourself, for your daughters. BTW, it is surprising how much pressure you can build up with multiple wraps of surgical tubing (or bands cut from an innertube), when you pull all the "stretch" out of each wrap.
Mike

I wish you could have heard my contented sigh and the smile is still on my face as a piece of paper wrapped around the barrel was able to be slid past the forend tip.
We will see what things are like tomorrow but for now, I am enjoying the moment.

time for an update, I wasn't surprised,but the stock began to move back to it's original position and it took
two more cycles of boiling and bending before I got it to where I wanted it and where it seemed comparatively stable.
I had planned to add a steel stiffener to the forend. I took a section of 3/8" square stock and milled it to a T shape.
Then I milled a corresponding slot in the forend.



Here is what the forend looks like with the stiffener in place



then I coated the sides and bottom of the stiffener with Acraglas and pressed it into the slot using a section of barrel from a trench gun project and rubber tubing to apply pressure.




I hope tomorrow or the next day to put more Acraglas into the barrel channel.

Thanks so much for the advice and the stories of family, in these uncertain times, it is great to be reminded that there are still good people out there.

PhysDoc

Just a quick update, this project is coming along nicely. I hope to start finishing the stock soon, I will keep you updated.