Yeah, definitely contact Boyds before doing any other work! Someone else had mentioned that the black Tacticools were made from a weaker laminate than the material used in the regular stocks, and, now that I have one of each to compare, I can see how this would be the case. The black versions appear to be a normal birch plywood whereas Boyds' standard blanks are a material called Strata-Bond. It's still a hardwood laminate, but it seems to feel stronger in thinner sections.

I'm kind of miffed that Boyds didn't put a pillar into the front action screw hole. It seems like cheap insurance against cracking like this, but I suppose it could be difficult to work into production. Still the first thing I did to mine was to drill out an oversized hole in the wood above the front action quasi-pillar and epoxy in a bit of brass pipe.