Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Everyone- wooden warped stock- any solutions?

I have a forty year old Zastava Mark X in .270 Win. This is my rough use gun. The stock has warped and touches at the tip of the stock. Are there any solutions other than a new stock?

Open up the bbl channel to free float and seal it up well. It might be ugly, but it's already your "rough use" gun.

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i notice that most manufacturers never seal the barrel channel and the action channel. i'll use 2 or 3 coats of polyurethane OIL to the channels and then i'll put everything on.

Ok. I will try that. New stocks are expensive nowadays. Thanks.

Here's an option.

I'd hog out the wood, and fill it with epoxy, but allow for a nice freefloat. This will hep to minimize future stock warpage. Use a good epoxy like Devcon 10110. Not the flexible schidt like accraglass.

I'd simply sand it out. I don't think 40 thousands is enough. That's not a lot of room. When I float a barrel, all mine are floated, I don't test with a dollar bill. I use three sheets of typing paper, gives me more clearance and still doesn't look bad! Really doesn't make a difference how much you relieve the barrel channel, it's relieved and the barrel doesn't touch. Clearance is simply for looks. The only difference between 40 thousands and 1/16th inch is that at 40 thousands the stock warping and touching the barrel is much more likely! My Mossberg Patriot's have a lot of relief but you have to look for it to notice it, they shoot well!

I had a similar problem years ago. A beautiful walnut stock with a blond stripe in the middle. I'd get the gun to shoot after floating the barrel, the wood would move and back to square one. My gunsmith went to a seminar given by one of the top rifle builders who also said the gun would never shoot with that stock.

What I did was to strip the stock to bare wood. I fitted the stock again with clearance to float the barrel. I put the stripped stock in a hot attic in the summer for 6 weeks to insure all moisture was evacuated, after which I sealed it in a 50-50 mix of lacquer and white gasoline letting it soak for a couple of days, again in the summer. After it dried I refinished the stock and reassembled. Stock has not moved since and the rifle was shot by my wife in a 'hunting rifle bench rest meet' at my club, which she won by a mile. The gun still shoots sub half inch groups all day long.

Minwax makes a product called "Wood Hardener." It uses a catalyst solvent to deposit resin into the wood fibers. I used it on an old walnut stock that had soft spots where the receiver beds. I applied two part epoxy afterward where it was needed for repairs.

Seems like worked pretty well.

You can open the channel and also do a bedding job but the wood stock itself would benefit tremendously from the pine tar treatment. It can be applied via torch or electric heat gun but heat is the key on application. This is why egyptian and viking ships have withstood the ages and we have them to look at and observe today.

This is the treatment I use on a Ruger Hawkeye and my Mauser 98 and M1917 bush rifles and the Marlin 1895.

Relieve the barrel channel first and then treat the stock before any epoxy bedding. This makes it impervious to weather.

Like many folks, I prefer walnut stocks. I had one stock on a tang ruger full length bedded for hunting in Alaska. Poi never moved in 3 years of hunting. These days I free float the barrels, over a 4 day period I paint the wood in both the action and the barrel with 3 coats of Helmsman Spar Urethane. Haven't had a point shift in many years. Many ways to seal a stock.