Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters What steps to refine a Walmart Special?

Steve,

Luckily, more rifle manufacturers are addressing stock fit these days, though usually with synthetic or laminated stocks rather than nice wood.

I do like nice wood stocks, but must say that the Tuperware stock on my Walmart .243 worked just fine shooting Jack rabbits in the snow yesterday. The rabbits did not seem to care and I was not really worried about impressing anyone. Was kind of nice to not worry about it getting wet and scraped up in the brush.

Improper stock fit affects felt recoil, trigger pull, shouldering and relative stability when shooting offhand. Even from a field rest, so-so stock fit can make things more difficult.

While many people do not like plastic, stocks can be easier to design and adapt to length of pull and rise. Fitted stocks can also be made more cheaply, and corrected without a trip to the gun shop, which keeps cost down.

Spacers, pads, cheek rests and accessory rails have been incorporated in the high end plastic stocks, and we should see that convenience filter down to less expensive ones in the future.

Of course, price is usually a prohibitive factor for many. Aluminum bedding rails and attaching parts are cheaper to manufacture and install, but the newness made them more 'spensive.

Now that the method is in common usage, stocks (and fit) should be less expensive and easier to do.

Edited to add: I bought an ugly Choate Varmint stock that I could play with. It cost $250 CDN, which I still think was 'spensive, but it shoots tiny little groups. I made a 6x45 using a Stevens 200 action. It's not a benchrest rifle, but it's accurate and fun to shoot.

Were you using the scope that came with the rifle?



OT: Does WalMart get some sort of "special" rifles?