Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats McMillan Benchrest stock facelift PIC HEAVY

Guys, I thought you might like to see a little bit of a project I've been working on recently. In exchange for a favor a friend did for me, he requested that I do a little work to a stock he owned. The stock is a is benchrest McMillan stock. I'm not exactly sure of the exact model, but it matters not. Anyway, the stock began its life with an action that used a barrel block. Before I received the stock, my friend had milled out the old block as well as the barrel channel and action area. He filled the barrel channel in with fiberglass to a straight 1.35" diameter and bedded his 6br Remington action into place. Let's just say that form followed function. Hence, how it ended up at my place. I tend to be a bit more picky about the form of these things, so I began my work. The following pictures should give you an idea of what the stock was like when I received it, as well as where it currently is. I'm not finished with this project, but I'll be updating this thread throughout the remainder of the project. I know it's not fancy walnut and wood craftsmanship, but it's fun non-the-less. Anyway, enogh chit-chat. Here are some pics:

Here's the action area. These pics show the bedding as I received it. However, I had already begun doing some recontouring of the stock near the action tang (the stock looked almost like a Palma stock with respect to how the action was sitting - the stock came up on both sides of the tang like fins)





Barrel channel with incomplete filling of the fiberglass


Here you can see the foreend tip with how much fiberglass had been laid in the barrel channel by my friend


Damage to the bottom tip of the butt. I'll be installing a recoil pad as well

Here's the barrel channel now with some new epoxy as well as a bondo skim coat


I decided I didn't like the original bolt handle recess and ejection port, so i filled in the old ones and recut some new ones (keep in mind I'm using only a dremel and some small files)



Getting the stock flushed out on the side after the new epoxy set



I repaired the tip of the butt as well

Cutting out the new ejection port and bolt handle notch



Finished


The I moved on to rebedding the stock


Ahh, much better than before

I've actually done quite a bit of work as well around the rear tang, getting everything recontoured nicely. The contouring process meant that some of the original texturing got sanded away, so I retextured the stock




Finished texture


I mistakenly ordered the wrong recoil pad, so a new one is on the way. Next week, that will be installed and pending my schedule, it might get painted as well. The owner wants a tan stock with black flecks, similar to this one that I did for hime previously (only different base color)


I will also be coating the action for him once the stock is complete. It'll almost be like he has a new rifle when all is said and done.

nice work!

Nice job!

What epoxy did you use to fill in the bolt notch and ejection port?

I've got a left hand that I'm going to be converting to a right hand and was going to use shredded fiberglass and resin. I like the way you made a damn to keep the epoxy in place while it set up.

Mark

I chopped up some fiberglass cloth and used fiberglass resin. However, where the bolt notch was - that's just resin, I filled the old notch completely up but knew that most of it would be ground back out as the old notch was just a bit too oversized and rough.

The dams work wonders to keep things in place and allow the fill to get a little proud of the stock so that it can be sanded back flush.

Nice work.
Butch

Heck of a job Darren, that paint color looks really nice. Be sure to post the end result, should look great.

Wow really nice work man!
Looks like it will be something to be proud of when its all wrapped up.

Darren great job look forward to the new paint pics!

Nice step-by-step account.

Thanks for sharing!

Excellent work. Is that Zolotone?

Great post/pics. thanks

No, that was duracoat

Darren, what bedding material are you using?

looks great

What did you use the make the texture pattern? Looks like an awesome project.

Ackleyfan and rc82bttb, Devcon Steel Bed for both bedding and texture

Good looking project! Gotta love fiberglass!