Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters What to do with this old Bishop stock?

I'm about to buy an old 98 Mauser to rebarrel to 257 Roberts. I have a Roberts barrel (Ruger 77 takeoff) that has been waiting in the corner of my gun closet for a long time for exactly this opportunity.

The rifle has a very plain Bishop wood stock with a mild monte carlo. The action will get a new Timney trigger/safety installed plus a bedding job. And all of the metal will likely get a coat of Brownell's Alumahyde in matte black.

Here's my starting point:



I'd like to dress the stock up a bit, but I'm trying to keep this a budget build. Getting checkering done is expensive, and I don't have enough talent with hand tools to do it myself. I like wood stocks, but don't like smooth wood stocks - I need something grippy.

What are the alternatives to checkering for a wood stock?

Didn't I hear about someone putting bed liner on a stock to give it more grip ??

kwg

Stick posted a good idea a few weeks ago. Mask off around where you would like to have checkering and spray with truck bedliner or similar rough finish product

Stabbing it with an ice pick.

https://www.ccwclasses.net/what-is-stippling-on-a-gun/#:~:text=Stippling%20is%20a%20gun%20modification%20that%20can%20be,versus%20something%20that%20has%20the%20texture%20of%20sandpaper.

This may be what the previous poster was suggesting by 'stab it with an icepick' (many times).

I inherited a couple rifles with stocks my dad had stippled himself. They look OK to me. It doesn't look like all that difficult, but he also was an amateur stockmaker and did a little checkering so I may be underestimating the required skill. I believe Gamo used to offer airgun stocks done that way.

Stippling - a lot of the wood stocked Anschutz target rifles used it a few of decades back. I can't remember the exact details of how I did one but basically it involved using a hand-held electric jigsaw with a piece of blade trimmed back to what I thought was the proper indentation depth and went at it, actually it ended up looking as nice as the factory work.

If you can find a picture of an Anschutz metallic silhouette rifle that is the type of "checkering" they used on them, it is very grippy and while it does not even begin to compare with hand checkering it works very well.

Here is a link to a picture to give you an idea of what it looks like - https://www.gungle.uk/gun-parts/stocks/anschutz-match-54-stock_i148

drover

p.s. - be sure to practice on a piece of junk wood before trying it on your stock

Might try stippling it if your a patient person.

I read several decades ago that Finn Aagard had a rifle he thought was too slippery. He masked off the grip areas and painted them with shellac or varnish that had sand mixed in it. That man was about as practical as they came. Sure do miss his writings.

Author/Alaskan guide Phil Shoemaker knows more than a little about such things. He posts on this forum a bit.

I have a 1917 with the same Bishop stock that was my grandfathers. He used a wood burning pencil to checker it. It has the outlines and then inside the lines different family initials, brands, Christian symbols, and other designs. It is the coolest rifle I own. He spent a ton of time doing it but it turned out great.

I had an old Bishop Second stock put on a 1917 Enfield. I put several coats of Tung Oil on it, and it was pretty grippy. I wet sanded every coat (put 7 coats on it) but the last coat. Try it out Pard!

I bought a rifle a few years ago and its black plastic stock was really slick.

I ended up just buying a couple colors of "stone textured" Krylon spray paint. Each color actually has 3-4 colors in it (one tends greenish and one tends tannish). I put both on the stock in a random pattern, and after it set lightly sanded the area where my cheek touches the stock, and the rest came out perfect. Great grip, great look. $15 materials and an hour painting on a warm day.

I just have to make sure I don't lose it if I set it down in the fall brush!

Playing devil's advocate here. First, define checkering lobs as being "too expensive." I just did a google search and was surprised at how cheap it is to have a simple checkering job done. $200 will cover a basic one at more than a couple places. For example, Sherry Abraham (highly recommended by some folks here on the 'Fire) shows $130 for a simple pattern on a PG buttstock. The forearm can be treated with an elongated diamond on the bottom surface only (kind of a Euro-style), which I've found provides plenty of utility, and which would add only a minimum additional fee.

I'll admit, a couple hundred bucks ain't chicken feed, but in the whole scheme of things in our inflationary world it really isn't much. I'm an amateur who does fairly decent work but who doesn't do enough to have gotten fast, and it would take me around 20 hours to execute a simple four panel job which makes that $200 mighty enticing to me. Your choice, cheap out at the tail end of a nice job of work and end up with a Bubba-looking project, or spend a little bit for some classiness.

Just send me the stock, and you problem will be over.