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

2 in Wood & blue steel and 2 car wash tupperware & STAINLESS STEEL special's for those really nasty days and places...that have produced some HD warpage and splits on hog & duck getters. What I don't unnerstand is the blue /synthetic guns place in all this.
Ron

Spring of '97 I shot a Kodiak bear with a SS and synthetic A-Bolt. Have not shot a critter with an ugly gun since...

I won't hunt with a synthetic stock. Own one laminate, that's about as far as I go towards sythetics.

As Art pointed out, not all Alaskans hunt with synthetics all the time. I do have and like several synthetic stocked rifles. Some of that plastic even has considerable character from the scrapes and gouges they have endured.

But it isn't the stock that matters so much to me when it comes to harsh conditions. It's the metal. There can be a good case made for stainless steel sometimes. Even so, well polished blued steel seems to resist the effects of moisture alone quite well so I still enjoy hunting with a traditional Ruger #1 or other blued and walnut rifle. In fact, I will probably take out the blue and walnut 30-06 today, along with some plain old Hornady bullets, if we can get the boat in the water so to go moose hunting. Don't know what the patter on the roof is all about but would not bet against "wet," especially judging from the sky.

Percentage wise wood is still way ahead with my bunch.. On the guns I hunt regularly most have synthetics. My oldest boy has a Bansner on his FW too. My youngest boy prefer's wood. I wish he had told me befor I bought an MPI stock for his rifle.

Wood is what I put back on some of my rifles after the season is over. I had a stock split, absorb water and freeeze on me. I missed an elk at 60 yards over it and we don't get that many chances at them where I hunt.

For most hunting I actually prefer the wood and I don't mind refinishing it once in awhile. Modifying a wood stock is so much easier also.

Seriously, I have both. Of the rifles that have synthetic stocks the only one I do not have a wood stock for is the SS Featherweight '06. It came with a Tupperware stock and after a little bedding it has shot fine. I tried to buy a stock for it the last time Numrich closed out Winchester stocks but they sent me a FW stock with a magnum barrel channel. That is for my SS .338 now.

I am going back to wood on a .308 Norma 1917 Enfield. The Bell and Carlson stock is just too heavy and thick for my tastes. I modified it for the flat floorplate but I am not sure I am up to reshaping a Carbelite stock. The closed grip puts my rather thick hands right where the bolt wants to whack it on recoil too.

Walnut is the stock material of choice....

The only wood-stocked bolt gun I use much any more is the 1953 Model 70. I use plenty of walnut stocked lever guns still.

I don't do laminates, hate 'em.........

Blue and walnut just looks right to me.

Frankly, any environment that a walnut stock won't stand up to is an environment I wouldn't enjoy standing up to for more than a day or so either.

+1

Blaine, I don't think people realized you were funnin' them. Every bit as funny as the post two weeks back about the .270 Roy as an elk round. The drama gets so bad around here that it's apparently hard for some to realize a joke from "expert" BS.

Just counted and of the 128 long guns I own there is one (count 'em...1) with a plastic stock and that one is one of those survival-type .22's where the rifel stores in the stock. The wood stocks are not laminated either...all were once part of a living tree.

There is not a single stainless rifle or shotgun in the lot.

I know that stainless/plastic rifles are the "modern" way to go but not for me (I also don't wear my pants hanging down around my knees). I just can't see me hunting with a gun that's so ugly I'd have to sneak it in and out of my truck so none of my friends would know.

Personally, I have never had a problem maintaining a blued steel/wood stocked rifle in any and all weather conditions. It does require some effort and I think that's the reason plastic has become so popular. Most of the younger shooters I know are not really "gun" people and don't enjoy cleaning and maintaining and appreciating the "art" of guns. To them, the gun is just a tool......muck like a hammer is to a carpenter.

Plastic and stainless will certainly do the job, but it's like sex. If you're only interested in "getting off" a blow-up doll will do, but it won't give as much pleasure as a live woman.....and you certainly wouldn't want your friends to see you use it.

By the way......I also have some 50 handguns, but those are not all stocked in wood. Most have handles made of stag, ivory, and bone. There are a couple in stainless steel and even one with a plastic frame.......but that's because those particular models aren't offered in blued steel.

Well, I guess it's just me, you and Castandblast that got the joke.....

I disagree. Real women can talk.........

Friends aren't friends until they catch you goin' at it with a blow-up doll and still call you the next day.......

+1 on TexasRick

I own not to many guns, maybe around 100 and 6 of them with synthetics and aren't SS, the rest of them...some wood and some Laminated wood no matter if is blued, teflon, duracoated or SS

i used wood/blue from 72's till 96', then went SS until last year. have gotten rid of all the SS except two, and they will be gone in a year. returning to classic wood/blue. nostalgic i guess. i did hunt alaska for 3 years with a wood/blue ruger 77. never had a problem.

I'll string along with Allen D. and those who use the synthetics, although I've owned and sti hunt here and there with wood.

Back in '80 or'81(I forget)I traveled to Wyoming with a pair of wood stocked rifles in 270 and 257 Roberts.While waiting for deer season to open, I used the Roberts to kill a big pronghorn at about 375 yards and everything went well. The 270 sat in that dry Wyoming air for a week. Since it had held POI all summer in humid New England, and had sat in a bunk in the camper for the ride out, I figured it was Ok and did not check it.(I have never made that mistake since).

I'll spare the details but I killed a nice mule deer opening day despite the fact that, at about 300 yards the bullets were not going where they were supposed to; I checked zero to discover the rifle had shifted out to the right and a bit higher,jsut from sitting around in the dry air.

So, problems with wood can come from not only wet conditions, but, if you travel away from home, dry conditions as well.When I got back from Wyoming, I got my first Brown Precision stock and have hunted synthetic ever since, for the most part.Over the years I have owned a few wood stocked rifles that have been very reliable in holding POI even through very wet conditions.But you have to watch them closely, and wood varies in stability. So overall I think Alen is right that year in and year out,if you travel far from home to hunt,a good synthetic is probably the best way to go.Just one less thing to worry about on a long-planned and expensive hunt; or even close to home, because there are no unimportant hunts.

To further confuse, I did take a wood-stocked 270 last year to Wyoming, and it held POI just fine. But this one has held zero for the last 6-7 years.

Yes, I like wood.

7 Blued steel and walnut
2 Stainless Steel and walnut
1 Blued steel and tiger stripe maple
3 Blued steel and synthetic
1 Stainless Steel and synthetic

Last year I hunted 50 days and 12 of those days were in the rain. A good oil finish and a good wax job on the wood and there is no problem.

The problem is some folks don't have experience with good wood

So maybe PWS isn't the same as SE, but I'd say spending a week zipping from the cabin around the island on a zodiak and trapsing through a sopping wet island is pretty close. My wood stock was absolutely stable the entire hunt. Good wood has proper grain flow and is sealed 100% with epoxy. It just won't move. I did manage to take a chip out of the stock where I relieved it around the ejection port. I don't even pay attention to scratches. Yes the blued rifle had a little bit of rust.

Now cheap factory wood stocks, and tupperware stocks, you get what you pay for.

It just comes down to time and money. I can make an excellent wood stock if I have the time, and $ wise you can get a useable blank for $250-350 if you shop arround. Having such a stock built would cost a fair bit, in which case getting a plastic stock for $500 is hard to pass up.

I do use alot of synthetic stocks nowadays but ever year still pull out the wood stocked lever actions to poke around the brush up in maine for at least one day

I like both - if they are good quality.......

But if I think I am going to get wet I use a Stainless Synthetic

I do have more walnut stocked rifles than synthetic, but my main hunting rifles (all two of them) wear synthetic.

That has varied a bit over the years, but when I decided to do most of my hunting with a 7mm and a 35, I built two great rifles and decided I didn't need a bunch of average "stainless/synthetic" rifles gathering dust in the safe. If a rifle was going to spend most of it's life in the safe anyway while I hunted with something else, it may as well be nice to look at.

So I've got a few really nice walnut rifles, two "hunting" rifles and a couple beater/varmint/loaners. Works for me.