How much can a Boyds barrel channel be opened up?

[mattri]

Looking to get a Boyds Prairie Hunter for a build in progress. Will be using a CBI in either heavy sporter or light varmint.

Can the Prairie Hunter be opened up to accept a heavier barrel without losing too much strength? Not going to be a bench gun but don't want paper thin side rails either.

Thoughts?

[devildogandboy]

mattri, read this!
https://www.boydsgunstocks.com/Articles.asp?ID=149

Varmint Contour: - called out as BBC on the models we offer, these are generally a heavy contoured barrel that can be put into our varmint thumbhole design stock. You cannot fit a varmint barrel into our Classic, FT or Prairie Hunter design stocks unless you are willing to give up the 'flats' or rails on the top and sides of the forend. The stock will be safe to use but cosmetically unpleasing to look at.

Bull Barrel: This barrel is usually a straight contour, usually 1" or 1.250" in diameter. Inletting of barrel channel will be needed on our BBC stocks or on our heavier forend stocks i.e. Varmint Thumbhole.

[airaddict]

Ive opened up a ross ft for a mag contour from mcgowan with no prob. The side rails only had maybe 1/8-1/4" left of flat surface on top but it worked. Kinda looked odd to me tho cuz the barrel seemed to be sitting above the channel and not in it if i wanted to free float it. You may be better off getting the varmint one IMHO.....

Brian

[mattri]

Thanks for the replies. Definitely not interested in a thumbhole, that seems to be all Boyds offer in the varmint style. Guess I'll have to do a little more digging.

[airaddict]

Ive had a duramaxx before amd really liked it....but they are only for SF. Wish they would make them in CF.

I have a vlp that is really nice....i like it a lot and its the DBM version. Look into those. Jim sells them but those might be the blind mag ones. My mag co.tour barrel looks pretty good in it for it being a varmint channel. Theres plenty of room in case i ever want a varmint barrel.

Brian

[mattri]

Good to know thanks- should have mentioned its a long action, stagger feed blind mag well.

[JW]

I have the Stockys heritage classic and the boyds prairie hunter
Sporter barrels on both (stevens)
barrels measure around .600 at muzzle and around .700 just in front of the forarm
The Boyds has at least .020 cleance with the standard barrel
If you measure your barrel dia where you think the for arm end would be it might give you an idea if it will work for you
Hope this helps
I dont see any problem opening up the boyds another 1/16 maybe more
Jack

[Txhillbilly]

I purchased an unfinished LH thumbhole Boyd's stock from Stocky's last year.I had to enlarge the barrel channel for my Heavy barreled model 12.
It worked out fine,and I really like the way it turned out.

[Driften]

I purchased an unfinished LH thumbhole Boyd's stock from Stocky's last year.I had to enlarge the barrel channel for my Heavy barreled model 12.
It worked out fine,and I really like the way it turned out.

Looks like you did a nice job! How is the stock working for you? Does it work well prone?

[Appleseed]

I have a new Boyd's that was going to be cut for a pistol action. It fit the 15" .750" dia barrel perfectly straight no taper. There is enough wood to fit the heavy sporter.
BTW, I've got a factory striker to build from and am selling the new Boyd's at a big discount if you are interested.

[Txhillbilly]

Looks like you did a nice job! How is the stock working for you? Does it work well prone?

The stock works great in any shooting position that I've tried.
Too bad I can't find anymore of them,or I'd get 3-4 more for the rest of my LH actions.It's funny that Boyd's will tell you "Sorry,But we don't produce LH stocks for LH actions",yet Stocky's used to sell them.
How hard could it be to program a CNC computer to 180* the inletting process?