Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Fixing a small crack on wrist of a rifle stock at the rear tang

Ok I know I worded that horribly. Let me start by saying I'm new to the campfire but am on castboolits, AR15.com, and a few Alaska rifle forums and just wanted to get some info before I start. I got a nice condition interarms whitworth express rifle in 375H&H with QD rings and a vari x 3 1.5-5x20 for a song and once I got it home and pulled it from the stock I noticed it used to have a lead chunk under the barrel in the stock to add weight but it has since been chewed out ( I say chewed because it looks horrible) anyhow I am gonna bed it so no worries there. My main issue is I am gonna inlet the rear tang some cause it is a real close stock to tang fit and also there is a maybe 1 inch crack only up top and it doesn't open when I try and flex the stock a little but I don't wanna go use this rifle then make the crack worse. I thought about maybe a piece of thread all screwed thru the wrist side to side in the middle of the wrist just as a safeguard but I know very little about working a stock. It does have a crossbolt behind the recoil lug. This rifle doesn't have a barrel recoil lug. Any help would be great.

Probably the cause is there is no relief just aft of the tang in the stock.Should be.010-.015.Probably others here can tell you how to fix it better than I,but I would fix that problem, if it exist, first

Ditto on guaranteeing relief behind the tang. I would shoot for a little more than just .015" clearance, especially on a heavy recoiling rifle.

Try working some un-thickened epoxy into the crack. Put blue tape right up to the edge of the crack and squeegee as much epoxy as you can get in there. Pre-warming the stock with a hair dryer which will help the epoxy to wick in. Don't pre-heat the epoxy, that just degrades it. Wipe away the excess- keep after it for a while because it'll likely weep out for a bit. Pull the tape well before the epoxy sets up so as to not get little bits of it stuck to the wood.

I would try anything of this nature before putting a piece of all-thread through the wrist. That trick, while certainly being strong puts you over the line into Bubba Land, IMO! If the crack gets worse after epoxying, then look at mechanical reinforcement.

I'm not an expert but here's what I did to fix a smaller crack (1/2" long) on mauser stock. I used the same method as gnoahhh suggested using a slow cure clear epoxy and hair dryer to warm the wood but I did one thing differently.

On the inside of the stock I drilled a very small hole (1/16") at bottom of the crack and about the same length as the crack that would allow the epoxy to flow up and through the crack from the inside. I also used a little epoxy on the visible topside. I figured it would help stop the crack from propagating further down and also reinforce the wood. The tiny filled hole is only visible with the action is removed and it's not an eyesore.

After it was repaired I whittled away some relief at the tang.

Not an expert either but have fixed a few up to a 10 ga. auto. The cracks behind the tang were shallow. Besides filling the crack with epoxy (and relieving the tang) I drilled a hidden hole from the tang inlet along the axis of the stock into the wrist. I epoxied a length of carbon arrow shaft into the hole to strengthen that area from splitting and better distribute the recoil throughout that area of the stock. Again, not an expert, but it worked. Before that the 10 ga. had been fixed by a gunsmith who inserted dowels across the stock at and behind the crack. Didn't work for long.

Ok thanks for the info guys I re bed the rifle as whoever did it before made it look awful. Anyhow I'm waiting for it to dry as well speak and I couldn't get any epoxy in the crack I think it was already glued but all I can see is the faint hairline of it. I saw a how to where Larry Potterfield did the same thing inside the wrist with a piece of all thread instead of the arrow shaft. I may go the all thread route as you did with the carbon arrow as I already have some. Seems simple and it's hidden so it won't be ugly. Thanks again for all the help.

It may not be the tang clearence. When the gun recoils the force
is taken up by the wood along the magazine well. As the wood
compresses it bulges out causing the crack. That is why light
weight Mauser sporters had extra wood along the magazine.
It may not crack any furthur. Shoot it, enjoy it, and watch it.

I repaired many stocks with cracked tangs during the years I worked in the Browning Arms Company gunsmith shop in St. Louis. In the case of a tang crack, I drilled a small hole lengthwise below the stockline in the inletting about as deep as the lenght of the crack. We had a special bench set up for gluing, it was equipped with heat lamps in large reflector shades like photographers lights. After the stock was prepped, we mixed the epoxy and set the epoxy and the stock under the heat lamps until the epoxy just started to thin. When the epoxy had thinned, the stock was warm enough to open the wood pores and slightly spread the crack. A small piece of dowel that had been pre-fit to the hole was coated with epoxy along with the interior of the hole. The doewl was inserted and epoxy was applied to the outside of the crack. Back under the heat lamp the stock went and it was carefully watched till the epoxy had just formed a skin on top that would not take a fingerprint. Back to the bench and the epoxy was trimmed with a chisel and/or file till close to the surface of the wood which had been masked with blue masking tape. When the file just scuffed the tape, we switched to progressively finer wet or dry paper. Rubbing alcohol on a clean white rag smothed the epoxy and stock finish. After 24 hrs. drying time the area of the crack was given a buffing with automotive polishing (NOT rubbing) compound. Wipe clean of buffing compound and apply your favorite pase wax with a small piece of 0000 steel wool and polish with a micro-fiber cloth. Most cracks repaired in this fachion all but dissapeared.

My first attempt was with a dowel and had problems with the dowel staying in the hole, between a fairly close fit and epoxy as a seal air couldn't get out as the dowel went in. Classic solution is a lengthwise groove on the dowel. But easier was the hollow carbon arrow shaft, I had saved cracked shafts in my junk box. Plenty strong and lighter than metal rod too.

Wish I had read your finishing technique before that first fix, would have saved a lot of hoo-ha figuring it out.

May want to see if you can drill a small hole into the crack from inside an inletted area and force epoxy into the crack with a glue syringe. The glue syringes have a tapered plastic tip which will make a seal when pushed into the small hole and work great to get epoxy through the entire crack.