Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Filling in barrel channel gap

I'm wanting to fill in the barrel channel gap on a Winchester Model 70 Featherweight wood stock after putting the original lightweight barrel back on after having a much heavier fluted barrel. The gap is excessive after being widened for the .660" muzzle diameter barrel. Any suggestions on what to use as a filler so that it looks ok? Thank you.

I have taken factory barrels, used a couple or 3 layers of .010 thick electric tape down the length of the barrel. I then mix up some brownells acraglas gel with some of the brown die and bed the barrel back to the stock. You will need to put a clay dam at the end of the stock to keep it from running out. Once it has cured, I pull the barrel, remove the tape and my barrel channel matches the barrel contour with a perfect free float.

I use long lengths of heat shrink tubing around the barrel. It fits like a glove....add additional lengths for the clearance you want.

Pro Bed 2000 brown in the barrel channel on wood stocks. Or AcraGlas Gel dyed brown also works well. You don't want any sort of 'putty' consistency glop in there...it needs to flow very easily when you put the barrelled action in and snug it down.

Good shootin' -Al

I like the heat shrink idea. I had not thought of that, I always used the .010 thick 2 inch wide tape but it is a pain to not get puckers on a tapered barrel. I have used a heat gun to try and keep them to a minimum.

I think that unless you use some form of wood dust and clear epoxy, you will have a very obvious two-tone effect around the barrel, both in color and texture. Maybe other people have had better luck but to me bedding always looks like bedding. Did you stain the barrel channel a dark color after hogging the wood out? That may help.

PC Clear works good to mix wood sanding in if you wants a really close match.

I used it to repair the fir floors on an old farm house that my son in law and I rehabbed last year and it matched very well. There was some extra floor material to cut up for the dust that got pulled up from the kitchen.

Good shootin' -Al

Yes, I did stain the barrel channel. The heat shrink idea sounds good to get the gap. I may even just bed the full length of the stock with the Featherweight profile barrel.

"PC Clear"

Al, brand/type please.

Hi Wayne. It shows a 4 minute work time but I've found it to be longer. Surprisingly, with the short work time and a 1 hour cure time, it doesn't seem to get brittle or have excessive shrinkage. My local Ace Hardware stores handle it.

https://www.pcepoxy.com/products/permanent-repair/pc-clear-epoxy/

A local pal that does really nice wood stock work uses counter top epoxy to fill barrel channels...turns out great.

Hope this helps.

Good shootin' -Al

When tinting epoxy with wood dust don't mix it into clear unthickened epoxy. Thicken it with silica to the consistency you wish and the add the wood dust, and a little of that goes a long way.

Very true, and I would say the dust usually turns much darker than the surrounding wood.

gnoahhh,. What do you refer to as " silica" ? I'm familiar with silica sand......

Not knowing just how wide the gap is, this technique may be too extreme but here goes. Take another piece of walnut either from a donor stock or a walnut dowel of sufficient diameter and work it to “rifle barrel” shape and epoxy it into the barrel channel. The glue line should be very small, if done properly. Then proceed to inlet a new barrel channel. Stain and finish. I have used other hard woods but you have a better chance of the stain matching with real walnut.

Colloidal silica. Commonly used for thickening epoxy. Think the white floc that comes in AcraGlass kits. (No Virginia, it's not "fiberglass".) Also called Cabosil.

I'm thinking if I use a filler that doesn't absorb moisture, then there is less chance of the stock swelling up in continual bad weather and I don't think I would be able to do a good enough job using another piece of walnut for it to look ok, unless I gave it to a stock maker to do.

Any epoxy type bedding material with just a little black ink mixed in, or some other color that might float your boat. Tape up any areas to be kept clear and sand flush after the compound has cured. I bedded tightly by clamping everything down and subsequently bedded the action with a couple of wraps around the barrel for floating.

I've used a bicycle tire tube. A bit thicker than heat shrink tubing, but it works. Cheap too. With all of these methods, be sure to keep the epoxy from getting under the tubing. I always wax the barrel just to be on the safe side.

I was thinking 2 layers of heat shrink to get a reasonable gap, and the contour would match the barrel closely.

Depends on how "OK" you want it to look and how much work you are prepared to do to get there... if it were me there are only a couple real options- a new stock, or get some black walnut that closely matches your stock in color and using a hand plane make some long slim slivers of wood by planing one edge or side. The longer the better on these pieces. Then put a light coat of Acraglass (not the gel) tinted with brown dye and put down a layer of the wood strips along the sides of the barrel channel, do another layer with a light layer of epoxy and wood strips, etc, until you get enough built up to fill the gap. Let it stick up above the barrel channel so you're sure of it filling the barrel channel without gaps. Clamp something round and coated with release agent of choice into the barrel channel to put pressure on the wood/epoxy layers to fill all the gaps and let it set up. Once set up you can sand the edges down to the level of the barrel channel edges and then reinlet the barrel channel to fit the new barrel. Once done it will be almost indistinguishable from the original stock wood and look like it was always there.

There are variations of this method that may or may not be easier- put the barreled action in the stock with plenty of a release method on the barrel like cling wrap plastic, or electrician's tape, etc... coat some thin pieces of walnut with tinted epoxy and jam them in the barrel channel gap until the gap is filled up. When cured, pull the barreled action out of the stock and clean up the edges flush with the stock. Fill the bottom of the barrel channel with tinted epoxy as if bedding but with the barrel clearance methods mentioned above...

epoxy with color match, its easy