Stocky
08-09-2011, 04:36 PM
Hi, Stocky here ....
I just became aware of this thread so here goes...
First, I apologize you had a problem. I am at my desk daily from about 9am to 8pm, unless I am hunting or at the range or something, so if you ever have any issues I am here to help. Don't guess or theorize, as I test, redesign, bed etc. hundreds of stocks and have usually seen it and/or discussed it several times before before. I'd rather discuss your ideas before you alter, than troubleshoot what you did wrong after the fact.
Please do not hesitate to call or email me personally anytime and I'll get back to you as soon as I am able to, usually within a couple hours. (Please don't use private messaging, use the stockys@stockysstocks.com email. My email is mbi.stockys@gmail.com, but please use it sparingly.) Yes, supervising the tech support of about 200 calls daily, once in a while someone forgets to return a call. Even me. In the future I'd consider a personal favor if you report even the smallest gaps in our service directly. You'll find I am a very straight forward guy and not prone to sugar coating.
Now back to that crack. It is not 'delamination' (that's straight down the glue between 2 layers, caused by a gap in the glue) or "punk wood", because if there was such a thing, it'd show up elsewhere in the stock along the layer plus the bit would likely expose it somewhere during milling. Any defects would also tend to show up across a whole sequence of stocks, as 2-3 are made from a blank and the blanks produced in like lots.
You can see by the way it zippered down a layer that the glue and the solid wood layer tried to hold but whatever stress it was put under caused the laminated layer to zipper on it's grain, half sticking to one side, half to another. A very focused stress it appears was applied, in this case I'd wager your receiver was acting like a wedge splitting the wood apart as the screw is tightened and / or it is subjected to recoil. See how thick the epoxy is along the sides?
When you bed a stock one must be certain it is sitting all the way down on the pillar before adding the epoxy, in this case your pillar is flush with the wood and the bedding agent is holding the receiver well above it, with a gap over the pillar.
Did you grind that part out or is that the way you attempted to tighten it down?
You say "no longer making contact" put according to that photo it never did make contact with the pillar, plus the epoxy appears to be much thicker than I would expect along the sides. Did you grind out all that wood, or did you somehow bed the receiver high enough for the epoxy to be so thick?
The only contact the receiver appears to make is either side of and well above the pillar, creating the aforementioned wedge effect and spreading the wood apart and cracking the weakest part (trigger inlet / screw hole) as you described.
If it was ground out, it was to get rid of the crack in the epoxy, no? If there was NO epoxy there it was not bed correctly. If there was epoxy there, the epoxy must have cracked too, no? Wood couldn't have cracked under the glue.
Honestly, not trying to be confrontational, and I am not trying to get into a back and forth here. But you can see why all bets are off once you modify a stock, we have no control over what's done, how can we guarantee your bedding job?! FYI: Occasions such as this is why we put the following on every invoice and packing slip:
"Due to the nature of our pastime many of the items we sell are designed to be altered, modified or otherwise customized. We are even happy to work with you and suggest such modifications. However, once you begin to make them be aware your stock is now yours. Unauthorized returns, damaged items, or items that have been altered from their original state are not eligible for refunds or exchanges for obvious reasons. [/i]"
You have any idea how many stocks I have screwed up in 35 years of bedding rifles? Factories simply do not accept returns on altered stocks so, once I remove wood, machine metal or mix glue I understand I am making a decision to keep the item come what may. (This is the firearms industry and there's serious liability also.)
Good news I have is:
1. You can grind out ALL the Devcon and I recommend you first repair the crack by building a tape 'dam' and saturating (injecting) the crack with the original, runny Acraglas. Then bed it in Acraglas gel, being absolutely certain of pillar contact before tightening. Never seen that stuff crack and the stock will be better than new, and/or;
2. I'll offer to give you a replacement stock, in the interest of customer service to our friends in Savage Shooters for $100. Keep the old one, too, we cannot take it back for liability reasons after alteration.
Thanks,
Don B.
I just became aware of this thread so here goes...
First, I apologize you had a problem. I am at my desk daily from about 9am to 8pm, unless I am hunting or at the range or something, so if you ever have any issues I am here to help. Don't guess or theorize, as I test, redesign, bed etc. hundreds of stocks and have usually seen it and/or discussed it several times before before. I'd rather discuss your ideas before you alter, than troubleshoot what you did wrong after the fact.
Please do not hesitate to call or email me personally anytime and I'll get back to you as soon as I am able to, usually within a couple hours. (Please don't use private messaging, use the stockys@stockysstocks.com email. My email is mbi.stockys@gmail.com, but please use it sparingly.) Yes, supervising the tech support of about 200 calls daily, once in a while someone forgets to return a call. Even me. In the future I'd consider a personal favor if you report even the smallest gaps in our service directly. You'll find I am a very straight forward guy and not prone to sugar coating.
Now back to that crack. It is not 'delamination' (that's straight down the glue between 2 layers, caused by a gap in the glue) or "punk wood", because if there was such a thing, it'd show up elsewhere in the stock along the layer plus the bit would likely expose it somewhere during milling. Any defects would also tend to show up across a whole sequence of stocks, as 2-3 are made from a blank and the blanks produced in like lots.
You can see by the way it zippered down a layer that the glue and the solid wood layer tried to hold but whatever stress it was put under caused the laminated layer to zipper on it's grain, half sticking to one side, half to another. A very focused stress it appears was applied, in this case I'd wager your receiver was acting like a wedge splitting the wood apart as the screw is tightened and / or it is subjected to recoil. See how thick the epoxy is along the sides?
When you bed a stock one must be certain it is sitting all the way down on the pillar before adding the epoxy, in this case your pillar is flush with the wood and the bedding agent is holding the receiver well above it, with a gap over the pillar.
Did you grind that part out or is that the way you attempted to tighten it down?
You say "no longer making contact" put according to that photo it never did make contact with the pillar, plus the epoxy appears to be much thicker than I would expect along the sides. Did you grind out all that wood, or did you somehow bed the receiver high enough for the epoxy to be so thick?
The only contact the receiver appears to make is either side of and well above the pillar, creating the aforementioned wedge effect and spreading the wood apart and cracking the weakest part (trigger inlet / screw hole) as you described.
If it was ground out, it was to get rid of the crack in the epoxy, no? If there was NO epoxy there it was not bed correctly. If there was epoxy there, the epoxy must have cracked too, no? Wood couldn't have cracked under the glue.
Honestly, not trying to be confrontational, and I am not trying to get into a back and forth here. But you can see why all bets are off once you modify a stock, we have no control over what's done, how can we guarantee your bedding job?! FYI: Occasions such as this is why we put the following on every invoice and packing slip:
"Due to the nature of our pastime many of the items we sell are designed to be altered, modified or otherwise customized. We are even happy to work with you and suggest such modifications. However, once you begin to make them be aware your stock is now yours. Unauthorized returns, damaged items, or items that have been altered from their original state are not eligible for refunds or exchanges for obvious reasons. [/i]"
You have any idea how many stocks I have screwed up in 35 years of bedding rifles? Factories simply do not accept returns on altered stocks so, once I remove wood, machine metal or mix glue I understand I am making a decision to keep the item come what may. (This is the firearms industry and there's serious liability also.)
Good news I have is:
1. You can grind out ALL the Devcon and I recommend you first repair the crack by building a tape 'dam' and saturating (injecting) the crack with the original, runny Acraglas. Then bed it in Acraglas gel, being absolutely certain of pillar contact before tightening. Never seen that stuff crack and the stock will be better than new, and/or;
2. I'll offer to give you a replacement stock, in the interest of customer service to our friends in Savage Shooters for $100. Keep the old one, too, we cannot take it back for liability reasons after alteration.
Thanks,
Don B.