Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles "Plastic" stocks

I've heard that on average guns made with the synthetic stocks are harder to get to shoot as accuratly, as those made with wooden or better yet, wood laminate stocks - due to some of them being extremely flexible where stiffness is desired.
Is there any "premium" priced synthetic stocks that any of you have had trouble with?
I've looked at McMillan, Bansner,H-S Precision and Bell and Carlson - can I go wrong with any of them?
How much weight would I save with the heavier of these and, say, a Boyd's lam <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />inate?

**Boyd's laminates are supposed to be fat as pigs

that's all i have to add <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

In General.....

Most factory synthetics are really injection molded plastic. They are pretty flexible in the forend. Still....many guys get satisfactory results with these.

Aftermarket: The Mcm and the Bansner are the pick of the litter of the ones you mentioned. The Mcm is heavier, more expensive, and maybe slightly stiffer than the Bansner. Both these are much stiffer than the factory stocks and both are good quality. Reports on the other two are....variable

Can't speak about the Boyds except to echo what Tod mentioned, they are generally, pretty heavy.

JimF

Both the gentlemen above got it clickin' ... I have a standard barreled action M1500 in .270 dropped it into a Boyds laminate with an Elite 3200 on top and she breaks the scale at 9.5#'s Its a pig ... but its my pig and with some work I'm pretty sure she'll be a shooter, after a box of cheapy Remington ammo and a couple of 1.5-1.7" groups I bought some dies for her and this summer I'll see what Horandy's will do outta her.

Don't forget the Borden Rimrock. About halfway between the McMillan and Bansner in weight and as far as I know they only come in one style, but they have a very good reputation for quality, stiffness and strength. Also about $30 cheaper than the McMillan for one all finished and ready to go.

My Boyd's JRS is chunky and that's fine with me. I wanted a stable shooting platform and got it. As mentioned before most factory synthetic stocks and injection molded stocks are flimsy in the fore end. The foam core fiberglass stocks like McMillian or HS Precision are more rigid and probably more accurate.

The couple laminates I've handled don't feel any heavier than a factory wooden stock of the same proportions.

I use mcmillan and find them to be more stable and accurate than any other stock that I have tried.I have also seen some very good accuracy with the cheap injection molded stocks.

I have a Boyd's laminate on my Savage 110, and it is indeed heavy. But I did see on their website now that for $35 extra they'll hollow out part of the buttstock and pocket the forearm to lighten the stock. Still, the synthetics will definitely be fair bit lighter, all else being equal.

McMillan has a quality product with some of the best inletting I have seen on a synthetic stock. I have tried McMillan, HS Precision, and a few others-McMillan gets my vote hands down. If you want a second opinion-compare the resale value of a used synthetic stock made by McMillan to all of the other brands.

Sometimes just filling up the barrel channel of a standard synthetic with epoxy and maybe using a rod in it, will make a noticeable difference in stiffness and accuracy without spending much money. Of course it is good to bed the action and the first inch or so of the barrel to increase over-all rigidity.

Roger that. As a recovering ex-gunsmith in Alaska, I replaced many wood stocks with synthetics. First- there ain't no such thing as a "drop-in" stock. With the rare exception, they will ALL shoot better with a proper epoxy bedding job. And almost always, free-floated barrels- so why the emphasis on stiffness- that forend is only a handle for you to hang onto. I had some Ram-Line ($70) jobs that shot very good groups indeed ..., but only with a good bedding job - and sometimes it took me a couple tries. Can't make much money like that. (Hence the "ex"!) I hated McMillans - heavy, and hard to work, but always good results. They have the rep, certainly, but aren't any better than several others, tho they may cost more. You couldn't give me a Bell and Carlson longer than it would take me to sucker some fool into buying it away from me, possibly at a loss! - heavy and clubby both, with a really lousy and easily flaked paint job. The only time it looked good, was taking it out of the box! Unless they have changed since the last one I looked at 10 years or so ago.

My own preference, for my own rifles, is a Brown Precision, in the raw. I'll do the rest.

so what about brown precision?

I bought a Remington 338 RUM with their black synthetic stock about a year ago, and the best I could get was maybe inch and a half groups using handloads. Invested in a H-S precision stock, and I couldn`t beleive my eyes. With Nosler`s 225 AccuBonds, 90 grns of RE-25 and a F-210M primer, this thing is shooting 1/2 inch groups. No more "Tupperware" stocks for this guy.