My simple stock project turned into a nightmare (pic heavy)

**n10sivern** · 04-28-2016, 04:05 AM

My friend asked me to help him build a rifle. He has shot a rifle of mine that's in a Boyd's tacticool stock and he was insistent on using one for his build. Problem number one is he's left handed. Boyd's does offer the pro varmint (new tacticool name) stock in left hand, but only in detachable mag and regular barrel profile format. He wanted to stick to blind mag, and stupid me told him we could make it work. Oh, the donor rifle was one of the retarded Savages from the 90's, the flat back long action receiver chambered for short action with a short action blind mag. The stock we received was probably the worst Boyd's stock I've ever worked with. The cuts were uneven from side to side, there were tooling marks visible through the finish, sharp edges on one side and rounded on the other, etc. I was not happy with the stock, but he decided to continue on and work on it.

Details for the build are:
Savage flat back left handed long action with short action caliber
Boyd's pro varmint stock
Boyd's metal trigger guard and action screws
SSS trigger and recoil lug
EGW picatinny scope rail
Large knob bolt handle from MidwayUSA
Cerakote and Kydex adjustable cheek piece by me
And the most important part is a Blackhole Weaponry barrel chambered in 260. I can't say enough good things about these barrels. They are fast, accurate, and easy to clean. I use nothing but their barrels on my AR's and have given up using Shilen and Criterion on my Savages. I'm slowly converting all of my older Savage builds over the BHW barrels.

Lots of area to fill in!!!

Example of bad cuts on stock

Bolt opening hits the bolt. It's rubbing up against the bolt the whole time it moves down to lock.

I blasted the original finish off. I found a piece is 1/2" oak board that looked like it would work perfect for filling in the void on the stock. Below are pictures of forming the board to the stock. At this point, I also hogged out the barrel channel for the larger barrel profile

There were big voids under the new piece so I cut some filler pieces of wood.

Holes drilled for the pillars. I made a mistake and used the brownells pillars I usually get, the set that has a long one and short one. Well, because everything on this is doomed to go wrong, the long one was too long and the short one was too short.

My solution was to use the long in the rear and cut it to size and use the short one in the front and make an access for the recessed pillar. I took a piece of 1/2" copper pipe and cut a hole in the new bottom wood where it would fit up against the pillar. I also had to hog out some of the wood in the bottom piece because the blind mag went just enough below the stock to interfere with it.

I bedded the action and pillars. I put screws up through the bottom piece into voids I filled with the bedding (Devcon) to help secure the bottom piece. I then finished sanding and contouring the bottom wood now that it's secured to the rest of the stock. This was one of my worst bedding jobs ever. Nothing has changed with this project. Nothing goes right.

**n10sivern** · 04-28-2016, 04:06 AM

So the bedding was taped off. The rest of the finish blasted off. The rifle was cerakoted in Sniper Grey and Graphite Black. The stock was sanded to 320 grit. I cerakoted the stock in graphite black base with OD Green and Sniper Grey sponged on. This was my first time sponging cerakote and my first time cerakoting a wood stock. I made a custom adjustable Kydex cheek piece. Learning notes to everybody, I heated the stock to 180 degrees for an hour to make sure no oils leaked out of the stock prior to cerakoting. After coating the stock, it baked at 180 for 2 hours. During that time, the stock shrunk some and the pillars retained a lot of heat, which caused the bedding to crack next to the pillars. Also, where I bedded in the bottom piece, there were visible cracks that weren't present before cerakote. I had to reapply bedding to reinforce the cracks. Overall, it turned out.....ok. I'm not impressed. It's definitely not my best build. What would you have done differently.

**Bolthead** · 04-28-2016, 09:55 AM

Looks like it was worth all of the frustration and work. Nice liking gun. How does it shoot with the new stock? By the way, my best shooter is one of those "retarded" 90s vintage flat back long action receivers with a .308 barrel. Just sayin...

**n10sivern** · 04-28-2016, 10:10 AM

Originally Posted by Bolthead

Looks like it was worth all of the frustration and work. Nice liking gun. How does it shoot with the new stock? By the way, my best shooter is one of those "retarded" 90s vintage flat back long action receivers with a .308 barrel. Just sayin...

Ha, sorry for knocking your best shooter's action. Of all the donor actions that is what he came up with LOL. Lefty donor actions aren't the easiest to find so it is what it is. He originally wanted a chassis but trying to do that was gonna be tough. Nobody makes one. The action or all the mags would have to be modified.

We haven't even shot it yet. Should be a shooter. I've yet to have a BHW barrel shoot bad. Overall it turned out ok. Lots I would probably do different but he's happy with it and that's all that matters. As long as the stock and pillars hold up it'll be good. Just worries me the bedding cracked with the heat. Hopefully my fix will hold up. If not, then we will try something different.

**Bolthead** · 04-28-2016, 10:41 AM

I am using the original long action blind mag with no feeding issues. As far as the cracking goes, the stock is not likely going to see that kind of heat very often, and that Devcon is some pretty tuff stuff. Should be fine.

**PowellSixO** · 04-28-2016, 11:53 AM

Looks good. I love the colors you chose. I just finished a pillar and bedding job on a pro varmint myself. It was my first one though, so I don't have any pointers. I liked the looks of the black textured paint that Boyd's put on the stock, but I chipped some of it off when I was working on mine. I used Duplicolors Truck Bed Armor Aresol spray to paint my stock once it was done. It looks almost exactly like the original paint job that the stock came with, but feels WAY more durable now. Here is a picture of mine all said and done.