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

Im my mind it has always been divided into:

(1) Semi custom- where a person requests personal preference modifications to his factory rifle.

(2) Custom- where the builder constructs rifles to the customers specs.

the std and range of work offered or involved in customs of course does vary.

If you dont like it, dont do it.

Ive got both, and use both...but if its going to be lots of shooting and roaming around in sketchy territory and sketchy weather, the synthetics go...

I really do enjoy the amount of detail and work done by Echols on his Win 70 rifles, but building his rifles on this action is not up to snub.

If he has to do so many "fixes" on the action to make it up to snub, which is already not optimal to for the job, he should be offering his own action.

The machining, with making his own action, compared to a completely re-machined Win 70 can't be that much.

For a deer rifle here. I'm sitting for hours and days waiting to shoot once. I would rather sit and hold walnut than plastic.It may not be as functional but I like holding it better.It doesn't feel as cold and doesn't make as much noise when you bump it.

because no one ever said " I have early morning plastic"

And I see so many get all giddy over a slab piece of wood, as you pictured. If people want to enjoy a piece of wood, for whatever the fugg reason, then at least make it nice piece of lumber.

Peter Pi thought the same and paid D'Arcy to design an action with all the functional details he deems important. The actions were wonderful but Peter says his cost to build them ran over $3500 apiece !
Which is pretty close to what most of the other custom built actions like GMA cost . And , depending on the caliber chosen, those still require considerable work to make function reliably

And as for synthetic stocks, as much as I do love nice wood, the stocks like DArcy and Joe Smithson are now building handle as well, or better than, the majority of factory wooden gun handles.

Both have their place and I love good wood.

To be concise...I'd say wood for fondling, and synthetic for hard hunting.

Let's not talk about fondling our wood....

I really do enjoy the looks of a beautifully grained wood stock that has been finished well. They simply are wonderful to look at and to shoot - no doubt to that. I have enjoyed the wood-stocked firearms i own and have many good memories with them on successful hunts.

However, when i'm crawling up to a vantage point where i hope to see the buck i'm hunting i wouldn't want that beautifully stocked rifle along with me as i drag/carry it along the ground. Service in Division taught me more than ever before that my rifle is an implement and tougher implements serve better than fragile ones.

Beautifully stocked rifles are kinda like having a beautiful lingerie model in my infantry squad....i'd be distracted by thoughts of fondling her instead of killing the enemy.

Well, as an old time stock maker let me chime in here. Now at 81 I haven't really done a stock in quite a while. To my way of looking at it for sheer beauty, you cannot beat a custom wood stock. For durability that can be a different matter and where the plastic stocks come in. The problem with almost all the factory stocks today either wood or plastic is they don't fit most people. How many synthetic factory stocks have a comb high enough so you can sight down the scope unless you weigh 400 lbs with big cheeks. To me a custom stock is made to fit the individual you are making it for. Comb is high enough so they can easily get fast target accusation with the scope and not having to hunt for the crosshairs. What I am saying is first of all fit is the primary criteria that should be considered and beauty of the wood if so wanted is second. I was fortunate to be in Jerry Fishers class at the Colorado school of trades and let me tell you here is a man who can build a beautiful rifle. In all fairness to rifles now made today, I think the cost factor has ruled out the added expense of a custom wood stock but in the same token they are willing to spend extra for tuning up the actions etc. which in itself can be very expensive. Sadly with the loss of vision in my right (shooting) eye I have been relegated to left hand factory stocks as I no longer have the skills to take on a new stock but I have a lot of happy friends that were the benefits of getting my custom rifles. My pleasure was looking down a row of rifles and knowing which one was mine while hearing guys say wow!!, whos rifle is that.

Amen

Looks don't pay the rent, unless you're a hooker on an I-40 rest stop. Funny to hear about looks and soul when applied to objects.

Wood it's what a gun stock should be.uploading imagesfree photo hosting

This really is better than synthetic

Yeah, they look great when sitting in 4 foot of salt water, paddling a boat, or using the rubber butt pad to keep yourself situated on the side of a granite rock ledge.

I'm surprised the Navy still don't build ships out of wood too.

BTDT. I can replace the wood, but not my ass.

These all get used no matter what the weather

Yeah, synthetics are more functionally sound. They are more sound than my hunting needs require in most cases, therefore I hunt with wood/blue when I can. It enhance the aesthetic experience for me, but may not for others. Let's face it, for most of us that are not hunting squirrels at 6:00 A. M. so that we can have breakfast hunting is at its core an aesthetic experience. Performance art if you will. Some of this art does require better equipment, but most doesn't.