Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Wood VS Synthetic

I see more and more custom guns with synthetic stocks and have to wonder is wood going away? I favor nice wood and have no love for a synthetic stock and admit to owning a couple of Weatherby Ultra Lites that are so stocked. IMHO a nice piece of walnut paired with blued steel and in some cases a case colored receiver, bottom metal, butt plate, grip cap etc is much more appealing than a piece of camo colored plastic. Where's the "custom" in dropping a barreled action into a molded synthetic stock??

I agree with you that I prefer wood vs synthetic. Not because I don't see the virtue of the McMillan stock; they are excellent in fit and impervious to weather. I prefer the wood for the looks.

Even D'Arcy Echols has an excellent synthetic stock option now; I have one on the way (just the synthetic stock, I'll likely never prioritize my funds enough to purchase a full Echols rifle). I would have a hard time calling an Echols rifle anything but a custom, even with a synthetic stock.

I love good walnut, but synthetic stocks beat the pants off of wood stocks in every important type of performance but looks. They’re also a lot cheaper. That kind of value has its own beauty.


Okie John

The label “custom” is used to describe so many things that it has no meaning.

A bespoke best quality wood stock done by a skilled craftsman will cost a minimum of $3500 for the labor alone. Labor can be twice that much. Such a stockmaker will make only 9-10 a year working full time.

Most of the “custom” synthetics are assembled from parts purchased from others. I know of only three or four places that make complete rifles using stocks of their design/manufacture. Barrel work is a machining process. I doubt most of the current synthetic assemblers could install let alone fabricate a set of iron sights, scope mounts, or other small parts. Good luck finding someone to contour a barrel.

I have a good friend who turns out some very good synthetic rifles. He is a super precise machinist. Using his state of the art $55,000.00 lathe he can fit a barrel better than anybody. However he doesn’t want to be called a gunsmith. He fits barrels and uses compounds to bed. He won’t install a recoil pad. His average rifle will give groups of .25”.

Two of my good friends are among the top five bespoke rifle makers in the world. They can build a wood stock stocked rifle that will perform just as well as any synthetic stocked rifle but without the synthetic’s weight savings. Both also build full on bespoke synthetic rifles. Costs: $12,000-15,000 for a synthetic and $25,000-35,000 for wood.

The question at hand is likely more of, "How do you plan to use your rifle and how much do you care for it's aesthetics?"

In my simple mind, my rifle is a tool that i take into the mountains and forests.

I really appreciate beautifully crafted wood stocks (though without all the gold inlay...), but the 1st time i shouldered my rifle and it was beaten up by my pack i would lose my mind. Some folks would say those are "battle-scars" and enhance the beauty as a part of the great hunts it had been on.

Not me.

If i'm shelling out > $10,000 for a rifle and that beautiful stock gets scratched thus flawed, it is no longer the piece of art i had before the scratch.

The synthetic stocks can be rained on, frozen, drug across the ground in a stalk etc., and are only a rattle-can spray touch-up from "back to new".

Bit like tits really...plastic ones don't do much for me.

I like both types of stocks if they are done right. Just like fake Boobs

I have taken custom wood stocked rifles to Alaska twice with no problems regarding the finish. On one 12 day hunt it rained for 10 of them. My rifles get used, there are no safe/range queens. A nice piece of walnut with a good checkering pattern gives the gun soul that you just can't get in a synthetic stocked rifle IMHO.

Wood

I'm old school and love wood stocks, the prettier the better. They are good for the soul. I do own a few with plastic stocks and really like the McMillians. but pretty wood is my Favorite! My other love is GSP's. Is there another breed?

I did a custom Parker 20ga with my favorite hunting buddy Gunner engraved on the floorplate. Nice wood stocks and a GSP and life is unbeatable:)

After seeing too many wood stock failures I bought a Brown Precision stock in 1983 and put it on a Remington 700. I haven't hunted with a wood stocked bolt gun in 35 years and have no intention of going back. I have several with McMillans, but many of the cheap tupperware stocks are more than adequate. I've watched too many wood stocks crack, split, and have point of impact change as atmospheric conditions and altitude change. I do appreciate walnut/blue, and it is on some of my shotguns and all of my lever actions. Not interested in it on a bolt gun that I plan to use.

I burn wood by the truck load in the winter that looks as good as what comes on 90% of factory rifles today. Since it doesn't look any better than plastic, I'd just as soon have plastic. The wood that truly does look nice, is too nice for me to use in the conditions I hunt in anyway.

Wood stocks can be stiffer and the same or lighter than fiberglass stocks and much better than the Tupperware stocks. When you get to the Graphite/Kevlar stocks then hard to have a wood stock that light but they can be close.

Wood used to be of better quality and was aged longer or more properly than some of what we see today. I am always amused when people talk about how fragile and unreliable wood stocks are and then think of the WWII trench war fair when both sides were in the mud and rain for months on end yet somehow their rifles still functioned. I have also seen two synthetic rifles snap in two and plastic stocks warp like crazy in the Texas sun. Yet I own both. Future guns will wear wood although some will have both.

I have a few of each, don't really have an opinion one way or the other. While I see rifles as tools, I also see the art involved. I've heard that a rifle that has a synthetic stock has no soul, but soul doesn't put meat in the freezer. That said, I am currently building my wife a rifle in .300 H&H on a pre-64 Model 70 with a beautiful walnut stock. Opinions vary, do what you truly want.

Agree with Switch on wood vs synthetic stocks.....

Huge price gap just to have the cosmetics of wood instead of synthetic.

The syn.Echols Legend catalogue rifle offering was largely due to the result of D'Arcys customers requesting such.



Outsourcing is not a big deal, some of the most respected rifle buiders outsource most parts that go into a build.
To use Echiols as an example;

pre 64 actions , Syn stocks , bottom metal, scope rings, barrels, action screws,etc, are outsourced components.
Duane Wiebe brags about doing all his stock work by hand (not cookie cutting them using a stock profiling machine
like Echols and Ralf Martini does),
...yet Wiebe does use the convenience CNC to 'cookie cut' metal parts...Why don't he machine such things manually?

only a kook would think an inanimate wood object can have a soul.

anyways..when you chop down a tree you kill it, so any soul would be long departed...LoL..

Agreed ^^^^^ Run a sawmill part time. Have sold many bundles of slab wood with better grain than some of the current factory offerings... Having said that, Yes, I do like a "nice" wood stock. A few years ago, was 100% synthetic/stainless/cerakoted. Am now starting to gravitate back toward a mix of synthetic/stainless and "nice" wood/blue.

Starman,
Well with reference to Mr Echols...he designed his synthetic stock and has it manufactured to his quality standards. I know him pretty well and he will not accept second best on anything. He makes his own scope mounts that are fit to each action and scope. He rebuilds each M70 action to standards that are unmatched by anybody. He designed the bottom metal used on his Legend rifles. Oh and he rarely uses pre64’s. Within the community of bespoke builders there is talk of perfect and then there is “Echols perfect”, meaning no way to make anything better.

Joe Smithson actually builds his own synthetic stocks, and his own mounts, but uses GMA actions. When he takes delivery of a GMA he works on it until feeding and function are just right. He has designed and built special purpose triggers. He has similar ideas of perfection as Echols. He routinely fabricates one of a kind iron sights, and any other part he needs. He just finished a 458 on which he built a special floor plate to accommodate extra cartridges. That rifle has a one of a kind rear sight base for a red dot sight.

Either of those gentlemen can fabricate just about any part from scratch. In Echols shop there is tooling for an action or two that he fiddled with but was smart enough to decide not to build. Joe has built single shot actions from a block of steel and has designed a bolt action.

Those two have capabilities that are a world apart from machinists who screw barrels into custom actions and then bed them into stock made by various outfits.

Have both, like both. Some synthetics are very handsome in their own way, but nice wood can be glorious. A couple of mine are very nice indeed, came as factory wood when that was still possible if not common. I doubt I'll ever be able to afford to have one made, but spectacular stuff can still be found on the used market at a fraction of the price of a new custom.

So Echols McMilans are better made than all the other McMillans?....are there two grades of McM stocks..?

All I know is that Echols will first recieve Legend stocks before sending them out to customers who ordered,
just to make sure its been done correctly by McM ( as best he can tell from the outside)... McM can at times
send out stocks with sub-std inletting,.. I've seen such myself and gather D'Arcy has also..Echols simply 'ups'
the quality control.

Echols offers Edge, std or heavy fill just like McM does.



His proprietary scope mounts are made by an outside machine shop, The Echols shop then finish machines
them to each individual rifle build.

As I said already... his bottom metal, scope mounts, action screws and things like his replacement magnum Mauser
bolt stops are outsourced, as are various other major build components like actions ,stocks, barrels.



Not true , there are other very rare smiths who do the same exact high grade refurb of both M70s and M98s.
from squaring everything, removing all machine marks, recutting threads, reheat-treatment, etc ..even individually
machining up complete new custom M70 triggers with better geometry.
I know because a friend and I have both had it done, ... those smiths will use Echols bottom metal at times.,
one will also make complete BM from scratch in his shop one at a time for the individual customers requirements,
'one of' bolt handles made to my specific dimensions, 'one of' grip caps and sling bases, scratch built precision
actions screws, cross bolts, scratch built express sights and ribs, inside rails all hand stoned to remove machine marks,
weld and re-machine blind action screw holes ..etc,etc,etc



Like other BM designers Echols has modified an already long existing Oberndorf bow release straddle design.
His design improvements are practical and not gimmicky.



rarely?....Legends are based on pre64 or newer Classic...Ive seen more std calibre Legends on pre64
than the classic action.
He does prefer the classic for long magnum rounds like .375H&H, .458lott,
but that won't stop Echols building a customer a long magnum Pre64.




The fellow who built rifles for my friend and myself will do/has done ALL that... and every bit to the std of Echols,
Smithson and Martini.
He has had and still does have work orders to last him many yrs without putting his name out there, and refuses to put
his name out there....Someone every bit the equal of Echols, as busy as hell yr in yr out , but virtually unknown by 99.95% ,
hard to to believe ...but true!


If D'Arcy doesn't want to venture into action building thats fine, some in the US have bragged about the idea but never done it,
others have tried and in the end failed as a business.

Hartmann & Weiss are successful at building new premium Mauser actions in two sizes, as well as
premium SxS double rifle and U/O shotgun actions and the Hagn design single shot action in three sizes.

Despite all the love for the pre64 , no US maker seems able to bring a custom production version to market.
Peter Noreen tried it once yrs ago, but metalsmith Mr. Blackburn rated the action 4/10 on the quality scale....lol.



Of course they do, but skill-talent and knowledge doesn't stop with Echols.

I remember Echols expressing the view that attempting WSM in a Kurz small ring would be an extreme gutsy challenge
' not for the faint hearted' IIRC (and not even advisable in his mind ) given that size barrel tenon diameter.

Hartmann & Weiss and Martin Hagn-Ralf Martini have been making and offering such rifles since the early 2000s

Echols frowns apon-wont use a std.98 for a large case .416 Rigby, yet long before his time some unknown capable smiths
at Rigby were making that combination work.....and that served PHs like Harry Selby flawlessly for decades.