Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Richards Microfit stock experience

Looking for personal experience/opinions (and pictures) on Richards Microfit stocks and how much work is involved to get to a finished product. Specifically interested in the Modern Sporter or Old Classic. Also, is there a preference on the oval vs round forend? I've refinished a few stocks before, but have not final fit a stock from a "96-99%" inlet. Any tips would be appreciated.

I have two of his stocks each for pre 64 Win 70. I had a friend gunsmith fit, glass bed and finish them. No complaints very reasonably priced and good quality wood in my opinion.

I bought quite a few stocks as un-inletted semi shaped blanks, and that worked real well. Their service wasn't always perfect. I once ordered six stocks and four of them were wrong! They got me the right ones on the second try though, and everything worked out. They are a little more work than some others, but the results are up to you. Generally speaking, you can make a round forearm oval, but it's hard to go the other way. I like them fine. GD

Had one I had all sorts of issues with.... Paid $200 for it IIRC.. ended up giving it to someone down in Arizona for free.... who was a campfire member....

Does anyone have a picture of the inletting as received?

I have never seen a Richards Micro-Fit stock that was anywhere close 90% finished, let alone higher.

I have 6 or 7 Richards stocks around, including 3 that are unfinished and never likely to be finished. Unless you are a skill wood worker and have the patience of Job, I would recommend avoiding them in the same way that you'd avoid a syphilitic whore. IME, Boyds stocks are much, much, much closer to 95% than any Richards that I have seen.

I put well over 100 hours of work into finishing a laminated Mannlicher style stock for a Winchester 70. It was a start, stop, start, stop situation over several months. I am not a skilled wood worker, so that was a factor, but for me Richards is the very last place that I would go to buy a stock and even if they inletted for the rifle that I was looking to stock, I'd strongly consider selling the rifle that the stock was go on and look for something with less aggravation elsewhere.

If you don't want to do any inletting, and minimal shaping and finishing, they are not the stock for you. Boyds stocks are generously inletted (enough that epoxy is mandatory, not optional, and there is little to be done as far as shaping is concerned. GD

I think you guys have made my decision. Not opposed to putting work in a stock, but these sound like more than I want to deal with. Thanks for the input!

Take this with a grain of salt because I've never actually purchased or worked with a Richards stock. But I did exchange several emails with them a while back about what their degrees of "finished" meant... they were pretty evasive and my final thought was if they can't say for sure what state the stock I'm buying will be in I probably don't want to buy it.

Regrettably a little late, but here you go. The first is for a Sako, the second a Rem 799 Mini Mauser. These are examples of the 96 percent semi-inlets. If memory serves, both are English grade A fancy, which is perhaps a bit optimistic.

Edit: These are both "102 Old Classic" patterns.

I've done couple of their 99 percent "press fit" stocks, one for a Rem 700 and the other for a Ruger 77. Inletting is more precise, requiring much less effort, but also the possibility of small gaps in some areas. For details such as the bolt handle and ejection port recesses, you get what they give you. In the end it will look similar to, or perhaps sightly better than a factory inlet. For those who plan to bed and free float, these should work well.

As others have noted, the stocks are pretty bulky as delivered, requiring the removal of quite a bit of wood in shaping if you're looking for a trim sporter. They are advertised as "ready for final sanding", but that's not accurate.

Final sanding with a belt sander, starting with #40 and working your way toward #440.

The cheek piece on a laminated stock that I still haven't finished is about as smooth as a motocross track and would need hours of both machine and manual sanding to get it right.

Interesting that you mention that. I just finished a Richards 102 Old Classic in green laminate and had a similar experience. To add to the challenge, the natural colored layers were very soft, like sapwood. The green layers were brittle and chippy, and the gray layers like cutting iron. A gunsmith friend told me to try Japanese milled-tooth files as an alternative to rasps for shaping. It was great advice, for they are very sharp, remove wood very fast, leaving shavings instead of sawdust when they cut.

'16 Spanish Mauser in 6.5x55







from 120 grit all the up to 400 grit. then i bronze wool it, wipe, put on wood sealer, 3 to 4 coats of Minwax Antique Oil and then i put on 2 or 3 coats of polyurethane oil mixed with mineral spirits (3:1). i used Johnsons paste wax to finish it up.

1944 '98 Mauser in 8x57




i did the same thing as i did before.