Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Cracked Stock for 99CD

For the second time, my 99CD in 308 has cracked and broken all the way through at the tang. The first time was result of my dad placing it in its case on the toolbox of my truck when we were loading up for hunting. Going down the road as I was rounding a corner, he caught a glimpse of "something" coming of the truck in the side mirror. We stopped and went back in time to find another guy admiring his find. After a short argument regarding the validity of "finders keepers" I got it back. Damage done - Stock broken.

I carefully glued it back together and refinished it. You'd have had to know where the break was to see it. That was about 13 years ago. This last year, it broke at the same place while mule deer hunting. Putting it back together seems to affect the function of the tang safety.

I love this gun and want to fix it. However, I only see stock makers with the standard style 99 stock, not the Monte Carlo/cheekpiece stock mine has (it even has the little gold medallion set in the side back by the butt pad). Any thoughts from you good folks?

A crack in the tang area is very difficult to repair to 100% condistion. There are some good glues out there, but unless you pin it, the glue will not hold for a very long time. The best thing to do is Just replace it with a new one.
Steve

Fixing the problem is commonplace, easy, simple and foolproof. Rick undoubtedly saved the summary from the old board, and perhaps could post it--if he doesn-'t have it I'll try to find my hard copy and scan it. Essentially if the crack is small, open it up and use acraglas (sp?) tinted to the color you want--I use brownells, which comes with the tint, for 22 dollars cdn( enough to do about 10 fixes). For really bad cracks, drill small holes, fill with the glass, and use brass srews with a fine thread. Use a small griding tool to grind off the head, and put the glass in the countersink hole. Clamp for 24 hours. The only evidence of the fix is the small bit of glass where the hole was filled, and if you spend the time to mix the black and brown tints carefully, the fix is very hard to see.

I have shot hundreds of rounds after such a fix and have never had it crack

Good luck--this is simple and easy--don't be afraid to try it

I think this is the posting you referenced. Posted by Brent on the old G&K Board:

"Just thought I'd update... I've almost finished fixing the cracked stock on my 1899 (had a 2 1/2 inch crack running down the grip). It is turning out great! I removed the stock, drilled along the crack with a small bit (from the inside), pryed the crack open and cleaned well with acetone. Then filled the crack (and my small drill holes) with colour matched acraglass (that IS great stuff!), taped crack tightly closed. Then, before it set, I drilled two 1/8" holes across the crack from the side (they stradle the hole for the stock bolt)... these holes go about 2/3 the way through. I filled the holes with acraglass and then threaded in a 1 1/2" brass machine screw into each of them. Once hardened, I cut the heads off the machine screws and used a Dremel tool to grind them below the surface of the wood, then covered the ends of the brass with acraglass. Feels as solid as anything... all that's left to do is to carefully file/sand the acraglass to be flush with the wood (along the crack and over the pins) and then maybe buff(?) to make the acraglass smooth. (even without doing this it looks pretty damn good!) If there is interest, I could post a pic once I'm done... If anyone has a broken or cracked stock I'd encourage you to try fixing it, it's not hard, just take your time and be VERY careful when you've got a drill bit or dremel tool next to that precious wood! A couple people told me they'd try without pins, but I figured I wanted it to be strong, and once put together with acraglass, it would be hard to redo if it didn't hold. Total cost, $25 for acraglass kit (which I only used 5 mL of resin/hardener), $.78 for 2 brass machine screws (from Home Depot).

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PS: one thing it doesn't say in there is that on the advice of my gunsmith, I forced the crack open quite a bit to clean it well inside. I was able to get it clean without breaking it in two, but he figured I'd be better to force it open and clean it well (even if I ended up breaking it into 2 pieces which I'd have to piece back together), than try and acraglass it with oil/grunge in the crack."

Rick....

Thanks Rick--you are a veritable font of knowledge! All that was missing was the photograph-which was as impreesve as the info.