Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Just an idea..

So I've had this idea for a while, thought I'd run it by you guys and see if anyone's tried it. I have a couple rifles with cheap factory plastic stocks on them, and I've been thinking about ways of making them better. I was doing some bodywork and bumper repair this summer, using fiberglass fabric and resin. Pretty stiff and strong once dried, and molds to shapes pretty well too.

That got me to thinking about fiberglass stocks. What if a guy took your regular POS plastic stock, rasped/sanded in down some and then laid a couple layers of fiberglass over the whole thing? Could be sanded and painted again easily enough afterwards. You could even cut holes in the damn thing to save weight,as the cloth will cover it later.

Any reason this wouldn't work? Winters coming and I'm going to need some projects to keep me occupied. Anybody tried this? If it doesn't work its no big deal, you haven't ruined a good stock, and if it does work maybe you could turn a crap stock into a little bit less crap stock.

FWIW Fibreglass is comparatively low in stiffness, for its weight. Lower than hardwood or steel (which are pretty similar in stiffness/weight), and a good deal lower than, say, carbon fibre. No doubt with enough fibreglass you could make your stock stiffer, but at the same time heavier and bulkier too.

FWIW I have seen carbon arrow shafts grafted into the forend of overly-flexible stocks, apparently to good effect. I haven't done it myself though.

Iv'e done the arrow shaft thing on three stocks, 2 with aluminum and 1 with carbon. At the time I used some stuff from the body shop of the place I worked at as filler as it was self leveling and strong and light. I'm sorry that I can't remember the name of it. After it dried I covered it full length with Accra-glass Gel. All three rifles came out great, and only slightly heavier, much stiffer in the forearm. On two of them it actually moved the balance point slightly forward, which I liked better. The other also had the balance point to move forward, but it was a little further forward than I wanted. A little grinding in the barrel channel with a sanding drum on a Dremel brought it back to almost where I wanted it, certainly livable.

I have thought that without the filler from the body shop that if/when I do it again, I'd use the original runny Accraglass and maybe a few more arrows to take up space without adding more weight.

If your not happy with the stock, try it, your not out much if your not happy with the result.

Dave.

Some of the most accurate rifles I've shot were in the POS plastic stocks. As long as the forend doesn't touch the barrel it doesn't seem to matter. There have been lots of guys try putting arrows in them as well as many other "tricks" to stiffen the forend.

Seems like an exercise in futility to me. Every single rifle I own, even those with walnut stocks, or high end fiberglass can be flexed enough to touch the barrel if I try hard enough, but none during normal use. The key is enough of a free float to prevent that. The cheaper stocks just need a bit more gap than stiffer stocks.

No reason to complicate things. Before you start throwing stuff into the stock, try removing a bit from the forend 1st.

Bondo?

Wasn't bondo. It was a 2 part epoxy that came in a tube, meant for bonding fiberglass and plastic. Went in runny, self leveled and set up hard. I figured with it being made for plastic and fiberglass that it would be sure to bond well to the stock and was runny enough to get into all the small areas. It did seem to work well.


Dave.

Wouldn't think a thin fiberglass layer, even with cloth, over plastic would stiffen enough to help anything and wouldn't it be prone to cracking/peeling? I have inbedded an aluminum arrow shaft in a rather flexy take-off Ti forearm to try to stiffen it up, it helped. BTW: The fiberglass Bondo is pretty similar to fiberglass resin with chopped up cloth in it, sorta like the blow-molded stocks. Bondo and fiberglass Bondo are very handy for synthetic stock work. Have noticed much variation in the stiffness of various plastic stocks.