Filling Around Action On A Wood Stock?

[brian923]

hey guys, heres my question/situation..

 

i bought a fajen varmite/target style stock a couple years ago, and have had it sitting around for a while now. i recently obtained a vz24 mauser action and am building a 284 winchester. i placed the action in the stock today, and found that around the bottom metal, and around the tang part of the action, there are a lot of gaps left by the inletting that came on the stock. i want to know whats the best way to fill these gaps? i will be slimming the stock down quite a bit to take some weight off of it, and make it a littel better suited for a carry rifle. i dont think that i will be staining the stock a specific color, i was actually thinking aboout just getting a really nice snd job, and just oiling it with a couple coats of linseed oil, just to bring out the nice wood grain on the stock. i will also be glass bedding the reciever. the only thing i can think of is using some of the glass bedding material to fill these gaps, and then re-inletting it to the recievr. the glas kit is brownells acraglass, their brown color. will this leave it looking wierd after the stock is oiled? is ther abetter way to fill these spots? ill try to get some picks, but all the spots i see now are around the bottom metal, and the tang. thanks guys, brian.

[diggerdanh]

Having to bed the trigger guard and tang area to fill any gaps seems like standard fare for any type of drop in wood stock. I haven't fitted a Boyds, Richards or Fajen yet, but I have fitted a couple of used stocks to new rifle builds and I ran into the same issues.

 

Yes, use the brown dye with the Acraglass kit. If you're not going to stain your stock and it is a light color then there will be a little bit of color difference between the acraglass beddding and the stock itself. Acraglass tends to look translucent if you don't use enough dye and IMHO it would be better for the acraglass to be a little darker than to be translucent. Unless you have really big gaps, which I doubt you will, you won't really notice it - it kind of just looks like a shadow to me. And even if it is a little noticeable then I still think it's okay because it just kind of comes with the territory of a drop in stock. If you wanted a perfect fit all the way around then you'd have to opt for a custom stock or 90% inletted stock (and the money/time that comes with those). Many are okay with the tradeoff, especially for a hunting rifle.

 

Even if you don't want to stain the rifle darker you might want to consider going with a "natural" stain - it will help bring out the figure in the wood. I just finished adding a couple of coats of natural stain to a nicely colored maple stock and it really made the figure and tiger striping pop.

 

For filling the gaps around the trigger guard and tang I like to use acraglas and one of those little syringes that you give little kids medicine with. I don't know if they're actually called syringes, but they look just like a syringe without a needle. With little kids we've always got a couple laying around the house but I've used the same one for about 4 years now. I'm sure you can pick them up at the drug store pretty cheap. Once I have the Acraglas mixed in a cup I just slowly pull some into the syringe trying not to get any air bubbles. Then I just release it into the voids to fill a drop at a time until the area is filled. I usually have to make a couple passes over a period of a couple of days to get it "perfect". Just make sure you use plenty of release agent on the metal parts, plenty of clay or whatever to dam up any areas you don't want the acraglas to flow, and I like to use painter's tape on the stock. Easy to do, just takes patience and time.

[lemski4]

Mix some sanding dust from the stock into the acra glass and it will be less noticeable.