bladeracer wrote:jwai86 wrote:As an aside, do laminate stocks like the ones from Boyd's still count as being wooden despite the extra work done to them?
In my opinion, no. Most laminated stocks are laminated the wrong way so the action screws crush the wood. You need pillar blocks to bed it properly.
My Ruger American Rimfire Target came with the lami stock and it feels and looks no different to the polymer ones, except it's heavier. It doesn't look and feel like a true wood stock as most of my rifles have. Laminated wood does have benefits over solid wood, but not enough to matter in my opinion. If you want a stable material go with polymer or aluminium, if you want the look and feel of wood go with wood. Laminated, or plywood, is somewhere in between.
A Boyds stock was a huge upgrade for my Savage FV-SR, but as Bladeracer said I had to add reinforcing/bedding blocks. As it came from Boyds the wood around the mag well was only about 3-4mm thick, which left an air gap between the wood stock and action pillars. When I tried to torque up the action screws even a little the stock would start making cracking sounds. I ended up using some oak dowel cut to about 5.5mm thick to take up the space and glued it in with wood glue. I also bought a thicker (3mm) stainless bottom metal to help spread the load.
If you wanted to get really carried away you could install some aluminium pillars, but it shoots really well as it is and I can torque the screws to the correct setting with no worries.
Bottom of the boyds stock in front of the mag well (including reinforcing blocks)
- Byods Bottom.jpg (253.88 KiB) Viewed 4574 times
Top view of reinforcing blocks:
- Boyds reinforcing pillars.jpg (367.31 KiB) Viewed 4574 times
Finished prdouct:
- FV-SR finished.jpg (649.75 KiB) Viewed 4574 times
Pro Tip: Taking the gun off safe increases the velocity by 100%...