Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Laminate wood stocks in severe weather; how did yours hold up?

I would wonder about them in high moisture conditions. I have a varmint rifle with a laminate stock. It was not completely free floated, so I sanded the bedding from under the cylinder of the barrel. My can of varnish was dried up, so I used Tru-oil instead. While I was at it, I used the Tru-oil along the entire barrel channel. Not too much, just what I often do with a regular walnut stock. A week later, the stock has swelled so much that there was considerable pressure along the barrel channel; certainly not floated as it had been! I fixed it with a dowel, sandpaper, and lots of elbow grease, and it's just fine now. But I'll never put anything but urethane varnish in the barrel channel of a laminate again! I assume the laminates that had the pores exposed soaked up that oil, and there I was.

Thus, I'd suspect that water could produce similar swelling of the laminate stock.