A tang safety 338 without a cracked stock is pretty rare IME. They were terrible about splitting stocks. They generally need the lug bedded for %100 contact and the tang relieved so it doesn’t pop a chunk out. Hopefully you can locate another stock and bed it first this time.
Thanks very much. In hind site, I do recall reading somewhere about the issue of them splitting. One of the reasons that a lot of those guns that I have seen are stocked in synthetic. The thing that really was shocking is that it only took 11 shots to do the damage. Everything was tight, maybe to tight at the tang. At least, it was after shot 11 that we noticed it. Live and learn.
I think my friend who owns it is going to go with a synthetic now. We discussed it yesterday at least. Its a really nice rifle, I should offer to buy it from him.
Thanks for the insight.
Jeff
