Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Anybody Still Hunt with Wood Stocks?

Just list two advantages that wood has over a good glass stock.

I'm not talking emotional reasons, or that it reminds you of your Aunt Helen's apple pie....

Wood is alright but I just prefer a black synthetic. I don't know, maybe because I'm a former Marine but I've just never seen the use for good wood (except for golf, baseball and sex).

I'd be a fool to say the wood is better.It never has been or never will be.It's because I like it in my hands..Tons of stuff was harvested before composite stocks.Reckon a few more will still be harvested with wood stocks.

But I understand your point crystal clear.It's just one less variable to worry about.I hear ya..

Fair'nuff

Not much wood at my place anymore. I do have a couple of wood stocked rimfires and one big game rifle still in wood. I have had two wood stocked rifles in the past that ended up cracked and couple others that warped.

Somehow reminiscing about a cracked wood stock or a warped forend doesn't do much for me.

....To my eye the wood stock will always be miles ahead in beauty and warmth of feel, but I hunt most often with my resin stocked (glass and Kevlar)rifles. Utility has it's own beauty I've found.I still get the vapors over a beautifully stocked rifle in fine walnut with gorgeous blue & finely finished metalwork. My synthetic stocked rifles have never 'grabbed' me like that,but they have with time won me over in the same way the homeliest hound in the pack wins his master's affection being first on the scent and first at the tree. They perform with such consistency under every condition they've won me over in the field. Still I'd never give up my favorite 'woodies' either..

I have owned a few synthetic stock rifles and they did shoot well and consistently. I no longer have one in the safe even though I have hunted the coast of ALaska and am about to do so again in one week but for the little hunting I do there I really really find that the look and feel of good walnut enhances the fun of the hunting for me. Bedding compund in the barrel channel, even if free floated after, combined with a good finish on the wood and topped off with Turtle wax car wax has worked well for me so far. Kinda like having a beautiful but higher maintenece girlfreind. To some it is worth the trouble and pain, to others it is not. To me it definatley is, your mileage may differ!

Steelhead: I'd expect YOUR country to be the stainles-synthetic capital of the world......

I hunted for a good many years with nothing but synthetic; last few years I've been hauling some wood around. Same reasons all of you state. I'm pleasantly surprised at the number who still use wood.

What really makes me feel like the cat that swallowed the canary,is when you bump into that wood-stocked rifle that won't budge; just holds zero year after year. I have one like that, a 1950's M70 270 FW that has not shifted in about 7 years.Sweet stuff.

Northern Dave: Caught you off guard,eh?.......

I love my wood handles........

+ 1 Nuthin needs to be added to that.

All of mine , cept for a lonely.22, are wood.

Mine are about 90% wood/blue, but then I don't hunt in the kind of conditions Steeley and the boys up there do. I live in the middle of most of the hunting I do, if the weathers bad I roll over go back to sleep.

Wood (including Lamnate) - 14
Synthetic - 1

I have a sample of each.

My Savage M110 has a laminate stock
My Remington M760 has two piece walnut
My Ruger M77 Mk II 280 has a McMillan on order
My custom M1917 Enfield is walnut

I use them all appropriatly.

All my rimfire and centerfire rifles (most are old) have walnut stocks. Only my Encore muzzleloader has a synthetic stock.

Wood for me. Only one synthetic ML and one shotgun in the stash.

Wood 7.5
synthetic .5

I have a mcmillan stock that I put on my Sako AV when I hunt with it in the early season here when it's really wet, once it freezes up it's back to the wood. I much prefer the feel of wood on my cheek and in my hands when it's really cold.

Exclusively. In a land of less than ten inches of moisture a year they pose no disadvantage that I have been able to see.