A few years ago I got a cheap Savage 111 Hunter XP for $300. I upgraded the non-accutrigger to a Rifle Basix and swapped the Bushnell Scope with a Nikon I had. The cheap plastic stock is horrible but with handloads (165grn Sierra Game Kings over IMR4064) its a 3/4 MOA Rifle. I'm a lefty who has always wanted a nice monte-carlo stock with a cheek piece that fit me. Richard's doesn't have the greatest reputation but they were the only ones who would make a Left-hand Stock for a righthand action for a Savage with the bottom release centerfeed magazine.

Original Stock with a DIY Camo Job


Richard's stocks come very unfinished and it required chiseling, carving and some filing to get the action to seat properly before glass bedding the action. I also had to trim and shape the forend tip and my recoil pad will be arriving from MidwayUSA shortly. It took a while but I sanded everything to 220grit then started sanding in diluted coats of oil to fill the pores up to 320grit.




I finished the stock with 3 coats of Tru-oil buffing it out with 000 steel wool between coats. I opted for a fairly high semi-gloss finish. Tru-oil can be knocked down to a satin finish by buffing the final coat with 0000 steel wool once it's dry. I've done that on shotguns but I like variety.






I paid somewhere around $200 for the Stock. Including materials and all my upgrades to the rifle so far, I've spent ~$650 on this rifle. I'm going to add a nice leather sling, a bi-pod, and a nice scope one day.

Most gunsmiths won't refinish gunstocks primarily because it takes to long and most people wont pay $300 to refinish a stock when they can buy an awesome fiberglass stock for that. So I put together a Youtube video on the process if you are interested in Doing it Yourself (It's pretty fool proof).