Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Who doesn't trust wood on their hunting rifles?

All that said� My Go To Rifle (338WM) has a Composite Stock� In a supreme irony my 338�s original wood stock, ended up on my son�s 30-06� Every time he takes it out I have a pang or regret.
The wood stock has been Glass bedded and has had no problems in rain or �Texas� cold so I would trust it. So much so � my next rifle will have a nice wood stock � So in a short 15 years� I have come full circle.

I own and shoot rifles with both fine wood and composite stocks. I much prefer wood and if properly set up a wood rifle stock if fine for almost all situations. By comparison the composite is ugly but hell for tough. If the weather is bad or the going especially tough I prefer the composite to scratching, denting, etc. a fine piece of walnut.

Everyone of my rifles have synthetic stocks. The one that didn't come with them were "upgraded" or the whole rifle was sold and replaced by a stainless/synthetic replacement.

stainless, synthetic is easy to sell. A nice walnut stocked rifle is a work of art.

Wood for me, but it has to be properly bedded and sealed to continue working well.

I don't think anyone, in Alaska or Oregon or elsewhere, is going to have trouble with a wood stock sealed with the 'Sitka Deer method' for moisture.

Ain't never seen where 'properly bedded and sealed' kept a wood stock from cracking at the wrist when dropped whilst goat hunting. YMMV.....

None of my guns have wood on 'em. Synthetics are the ticket.

I have rifles with wood stocks that are over 50 years old and have no problem. I only have 1 plastic stock and that's all I'll probably ever own. Wood works great for me.

Me neither...'course I don't regularly drop my rifles from high places and expect them to keep on going either. Same with my scopes and open bead sights, both of which I have had break while the wood stocks kept right on going.

HOWEVER, if wrist breakage is a large concern, it can be prevented in almost all cases by simply drilling a hole up through the wrist from under the pistol grip cap, inserting a 1/4" fully-threaded bolt, then dumping epoxy bedding down the hole to fill it all up. Replace the pistol grip cap to cover it all up. That makes the wrist very difficult to snap in half, at least as tough as a synthetic.

I don't like wood stocks in the field, at least not one-piece wood stocks.

The last one I used for game was the day I shot my first elk. I was hunting the Oregon coast range. I'd checked my sight-in a day or two ahead of the season. The first day I hunted it rained about 4 inches, mean time, I was slogging through wet huckleberry, blackberry, salal, and ferns. I was WET. My gear was WET. That night I got a tip where elk could be found so at daylight I was behind a stump 150 yards from a herd with 4 legal bulls. They were gettin' spooky so rather than wait for the best bull I whacked the first legal bull to step free and give me a shot. I scooched up on the stump and took a real solid rest, put the crosshairs behind his shoulder (broadside shot) and broke his neck with the shot ... my bullet hit almost exactly 18 inches from point of aim.

I wrote it off to "elk fever", but on a whim a few days later I stopped at the range and checked my sights. Nope, at 100 yards I was 12" off from where I'd been less than a week earlier.

Rather than adjust my sights, I left them. Over the course of the next few months, I shot the gun maybe once a month but never touched the scope adjustments. After a few months, as the stock dried, the gun returned to the pre-season point of aim.

And I've never hunted game with another "real" one piece wood stock since. Doesn't bother me to shoot a 2 piece, it doesn't have the same kind of leverage, so for lever actions or single shots, wood is fine. But not on a bolt action. Laminates or synthetics only for me.

Tom