Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles I think I actually like plastic stocks

A long time ago I had a rifle with a decent piece of wood on it. I hunted hard with it, and after a while, it looked pretty bad. I know it is tool, but it still kind of hurt.

I like laminate. It is stable, but too heavy.

I often hear that fiberglass is the best. Yes, a good (expensive) stock is lighter and more stiff.

On Friday I was doing a spring bear hunt. Coming down a VERY steep slope I took a spectacular fall. Before the velcro strap ripped on the gunbearer the nice fiberglass stock on my Montana hit the backframe hard enough to go through the paint and gouge the stock in three places.

It can be filled and sanded and painted, but I have had plastic stocks that held up better.

Plastic is supposed to be flimsy. I've had several. The ones that were, I added some acra-glass in the forearm. (A little, with an old arrow section, can, reasonably lightly, stiffen a stock.)

I've heard plastic is less accurate. I've had really accurate a Classic, Rugers, and a Tikka all with plastic.

I've heard they are heavy. IIRC, the past few have been about 30 ounces, less than most other stocks.

Has anyone really ever had one melt? I've never had one. Has anyone had one crack in the cold? I haven't.

Is the real reason we call plastic disparaging names because we don't like to feel cheap?

Or, is there a real advantage to the other stock materials?

This might be one of those things that if I need it explained to me, I won't get it. I might be so classless that I can't appreciate the differences.

I love how light and well designed the stock on my Montana feels, but, from a pragmatic point of view, if I had a plastic stocked rifle Saturday, I bet the stock would'nt need the work this one does.

Elitists or unlighted ones, I will come back to this thread after I have dinner and put on the flame-resistant suit later on. That is, if this question is even worth answering!

To each their own ... does the Montana really need repaired OR do you feel it needs filled, sanded and painted?

I cant seem to destroy a composite stock and believe me ive tried.

You're right, it doesn't need it to keep hunting, but I should fix it. I just think I'll wait to at least bear season is over!

Podunkkennels, when you say composite, do you mean plastic or fiberglass? Plastic, right?

I do like fiberglass, but from a practical point of view, I think I still don't understand all the advantages besides (minimal?) weight savings.

The accuracy advantage must be there (You don't see benchrest guys using plastic), but the Tikka I had, with a plastic stock, was silly accurate. Maybe a fiberglass stock would have been even better. I did take one Ruger and switch it from the factory plastic into a (bedded) fiberglass and there was no accuracy difference I could see.

Maybe shooting with a tight sling a fiberglass stock is enough stiffer to make a difference?

Oh well. I'm not sure why I even started this thread. I guess just thinking about the gouges in the fiberglass stock made me think that plastic isn't that bad.

No sir I didnt mean mean plastic, I mean like the stock on your kimber.

The only one I have gouged is a McMillan. The plastic factory stocks have held up fine. They must be made from the same kind of plastic that we find in our pick-up truck grilles, dash boards, and steering wheels.

Plastic is a generic term and as applied to rifle stocks can mean a wide range of techniques and materials. I know some/most of the earlier beefs against plastic stocks have been worked out but I just can't warm up to a synthetic stock.
I have two and keep them hidden in the locker. I only put them on the rifles when the weather is really inclimate. The rest of the time, the rifles wear wooden stocks.

The only advantage I see to an actual fiberglass is that they can be lighter/stiffer.

Injection-molded seem to work fine most of the time that I can see, and they don't show the scratches as much.

I have tried to destroy my plastic Ruger stock. Have not been successful.

My new Sako has a plastic stock that is very very nce. I like it and I'm keeping it.

I like stock finishes that take a nice scratch...or a gouge or two.....when I put my rifle on the ground,I find rocks to lay it on.....

I also hate new miracle finishes like cerakote and stuff like that...it'll never wear off like a blue job.... And stainless is best after it has had blood on it.

ID, keep the gouges in your Kimber...that's character! Ha!

i really like the look of nice well finished wood on a rifle but anymore if its a rifle that im gonna hunt with it has to have a synthetic stock.

Bob, I would feel a little bad leaving the gouges. I bought the gun used, and someone before me had done a desert camo job for the whole set up. Even if I don't fill them and just try to paint over, it has a two-tone spray thing going that will be really hard to match.

I guess I could just spray it my own way. Maybe and OD green on the stock and a matte black on the barrel, action, mounts, and scope. Or I could try stripping it and getting it back to the way it came from the factory. (I wonder if I can strip the Aluma-hyde 2 without hurting the stock or scope.) Decisions decisions! I'm not going to mess with it until bear is over.

I guess it doesn't hurt anything to leave it gouged. I just have that problem where I see something that needs done, and it kind of bugs me until I do it.

I am learning to live with the lawn, though. (I have the misfortune of living in a neighborhood where all of neighbors seem to really enjoy yard work. I enjoy fishing, shooting, hiking, hunting, et cetera. I have a hard time getting excited about yards.)

If I can live with the yard, maybe I can live with the gouge and eventually come to think of it as character. My buddy said my fall was really impressive. It involved rotten snow with a crust supporting fresh powder, snowshoes (one postholed), momentum, and a steep angle. I think I'd rather not remember that particular "character" building incident for me and the rifle!

ID: Glad you did not get hurt.....but you will remember the incident a long time!I agree on the lawn thing....

I hope Bob doesn't read this..but I'm starting to really like synthetic too..

Used one for years on a varmint rifle, and it got shot more and treated well less than any other.

Last year I hunted deer with a synthetic stocked rifle, killed one 1.5 miles from the truck, dressed him, put him in a roll-up sled I had in my daypack, then thought " What am I gonna do with the rifle?"

WTH...I Piled it on top of the deer, lashed it down and drug it off...the gunky stuff washed off easily later....


Ingwe

Don't like the plastic/composites, but they are what I hunt, no worries when they get beat up.

Ingwe: Haha! The truth be told!

I will throw no stones as I got my first synthetic IIRC about 1979-1980 or thereabouts,and have had this conundrum over wood vs synthetics ever since, so that some hunts I take wood and some I take synthetic...the wood will hunt if it has proven to be reliable over the years....some of it has been really reliable,holding POI for years even after dowsings,but it's easier to trust a synthetic.

I have killed big bucks late enough in the day so that all I could get off the mountain in the dark was head,cape,and backstraps, and have (more than once!) left the synthetic stocked rifle on the mountain to be packed with the carcass next day.

I am not so cavalier with the wood since the day my guide almost ran over my Goens 270, which I stupidly leaned against the Willy's jeep while we were retrieving a buck...it landed in a foot of snow but I found it

'loder,
Is that an A7?
Thx

I like the my Montanas and also the McMillan edge classic I just got for my 257 Wby. However, I really like my wood stocked Kimbers more....

That's why a 84L classic select will be in my possession later this year. Might be my Christmas present to myself!

To each his own, I'm an accuracy freek. I have tried every trick that I know on plastic stocks looking for accuracy from pillar bedding, free floated barrels, filled the forarms with devcon, marine tex, 1/4" steel rods, and given the barrel a full bed with the same compounds including RTV Blue trying to improve accuracy.

There must be a lot of flex in the grip of a plastic stock and I am sure that regidity varies from brand to brand.

Contrary to what ever I have believed, my neighbor passed and left me his Ruger Stainless in 270 with one of those real ugly skeleton stocks. All my theories went out the window with this gun because it will shoot 1 1/2 inches at 200 yards with 55g of IMR 4350 with a Win primer in win cases using 130g Hornady Flat bases, and 1" at 200 with 60g of H4831SC with win cases, win primers...jumping the bullet 0.080. This uhly gun has the barrel touching the entire length of the stock and only the recoil lug is bedded with the mag box free floated and center screw removed.

With the exception of this UGLY Ruger, I'm done with factory plastic stocks.

The area you live in(how wet), the range of shots that you expect to take, how far you walk may influence your choice of stock.

I've got a Savage with one of those hideous tupperware stocks they make. It shoots great, and I don't think you could mess it up, even if you ran over it with a tractor. It's about a pound lighter than my other rifles with nicer stocks, and it shoots great (did I mention that?). I get it out when it's raining or when I'm feeling like carrying a lighter rifle. I had to tinker around a bit with it, but it's a go-to rifle when I feel like I need a .25/06.