Homemade fibreglass stock

[kiwi3006]

A while back I had my Rem700 30/06 rebarreled to 7mm rem mag. The only thing I didn't do was replace the factory plastic stock. Down here in New Zealand a fibreglass stock runs from $550 for a High Tech to $1200 for a McMillan Edge. I couldn't afford these so I decided to make my own.

I bought 4L of West Systems 105 resin and 206 hardner some Collodial Silica and 403 filler, 10 metres of 6oz both cloth and went for it.

I used an old wooden rem bdl long action as the pattern, filled up the holes with clay and used a real estate sign as the parting board and made a two piece mold from it. I used 4 coats of release wax and hair spray, it worked a treat!

8 layers of 6oz cloth later I had my 2 part mold finished.

The I layed up 6 layers of 6oz cloth inside the mold and about 9 layers through the pistol grip. The next day I trimmed up the edges and bolted the molds together and stuck the two halfs together with 3 layers of 6oz cloth.

I had already used silicon sealer to make a two part cast of the action area. I put the silicon cast in the action area and filled the area with resin mixed with 403 filler. The but was filled with expanding polyurethane foam. The last 2cm of the but were 6oz cloth and resin so I could screw and glue the recoil pad on.

The forearm was filled with polystyrene and overlaid with 6 oz cloth and resin.

Finally I painted it with a rubberised non-slip heavy duty paint. The finished stock weighs 825 gm/29oz.

Finished stock

Magazine cutout

Action area.

First shots with the new stock grouped to the same point of impact as the old stock. The first group was 1.75 MOA. I shot much better on the second group and managed 0.4 MOA at 100 yds.

Second group at 100 yds

All in all it has worked out well, and I still have enough material to make 2 more stocks at least.

Stu.

 

[300R]

Hey mate,great effort, can't have been easy, i imagine a few beers have gone into that project.

 

[J E Custom]

Laid up fiberglass stocks are very good stocks and they use to be the hi end custom
stocks of choice but they were expensive because of the labor.

Your stock looks great and as you do more you will get faster and learn little tricks
that will cut your time and materials.

Regular bondo (Car Body Filler) works good for filling some of the gas bubbles and
imperfections.

Great looking stock !!!!!

J E CUSTOM

 

[edge]

Very nice project.

Any idea of your approximate cost?

Can you post pictures of your molds?

thanks, edge.

 

[shortgrass]

Nice project! Maybe, with more experiance & some innovation to speed up the process, could lead to a part time business (or full time!) with the imports priced so high? Sounds like an opportunty to me!

 

[royinidaho]

I'm with Edge.

Pics of molds?

Great project!!

 

[kiwi3006]

Thanks for the comments guys.
300R, it has taken me just over a year of thinking before I finally got around to it. I hate to think how many beers that was.
Yes I am thinking of selling a few as a part time business.
Costs are all in $NZ dollars, $180 for resin and the fillers, $6 a metre for the cloth, $24 for mold release wax( I have enough to do a hundred or more stocks) $2 a paint brush i have gone through 13 so far, $24 for a roller, $28 for silicone sealant, $77 for the paint (enough to do about 20 stocks). I mix the resin in plastic cups with ice block sticks. Total $419. But like I said I have enough resin to make two more so that works out at $139 a stock plus labour.

I will post some pics of the mold tonight when I get home. I kept the end of the butt open and the action/forearm area so that I could get access to stick the two halves together. Getting into the pistol grip area was tricky, I had to bend some fencing wire just right to stick the cloth down.

Stu.

 

[winmag]

Wow, Tallent,Patience,Drive, and of course, alot of beer. That looks like a difficult DIY project to tackle. You did great. Congrats on your finnished product, and the possibility of a prosperous new business.

 

[300R]

It's amazing what you can achieve when you just have a go!I attempted a similar thing a little while ago, i was desperate for a stock that fit me well and looked the goods, problem was i didn't have the cash after buying the rifle so i had a brain wave to modify the HS stock on it.I needed to extended the lop,the pistol grip and add a finger hook(i know what a fu$k#ng brain wave right!lightbulb).Who did i think i was?I drive a truck for a living!!!Anyway four afternoons in and what a mess!I thought i had bitten off more than i could chew,i got the ***** with it all one afternoon and smacked the butt of the stock where i had been working on with a hammer(now i mean i smacked the $u#k of it, all 102kgs of me) in disgust that i had ruined a perfectly good stock and i was gonna be stuck with a barreled action and no money to buy another one, well........ to my astonishment it didn't even chip or crack it ,not even a mark, so i sat down... had a beer and a laugh, looked at the stock and decided that if it survived that beating it was worth trying to finish no matter the result, story is it turned out better than i ever expected and it was hammer proof.Congratulations must go out to you again Kiwi,because i can only imagine what you went through, good on you mate.
Here is a little pic of my brainwave..

 

[royinidaho]

300R,

Good Job!!!

It's kind of nice to end up with something that fits you!

Here's one I did. Raised the comb. Lengthened 3 inches. Reformed bottom of but stock to ride the bags. Squared the forearm, added thumb hole and palm swells for both hands.

I used JB Weld, Bondo, quick steel and a piece of pine 2x4.
As soon as your mate posts pics of his molds I make a real one. This one was supposed to be a proto-type anyway.

Somewhere in there is the original Bell & Carlson sporter stock.

 

[J E Custom]

300R,

Good Job!!!

It's kind of nice to end up with something that fits you!

Here's one I did. Raised the comb. Lengthened 3 inches. Reformed bottom of but stock to ride the bags. Squared the forearm, added thumb hole and palm swells for both hands.

I used JB Weld, Bondo, quick steel and a piece of pine 2x4.
As soon as your mate posts pics of his molds I make a real one. This one was supposed to be a proto-type anyway.

Somewhere in there is the original Bell & Carlson sporter stock.

Good job all !!!!!

I really like the camo on your rifle Roy.

Nice to see that there are still people that do there own work. (Even when you could buy
something).

It makes the rifle truly a custom.

J E CUSTOM

 

[kiwi3006]

Here are the pics of the mold as promised.

Sorry I didn't take any pics when I was making them, cameras and gloves covered in resin don't really go together. The funny lumps are used to locate the two halves of the stock correctly. When I make another one I will just use thin rolls of clay to make the locating lugs.

Basically I layed the stock on the bench put clay around it to half way up the sides. Then I put the real estate sign around the stock ( having already cut out the hole for the stock) then fill in gaps with clay. I then filled the barrel channel, action area and floorplate with clay but had them sticking out from the stock to form a lip. Then 4 layers of wax and then hairspray.
Then mix up the resin and hardener and add silica to thicken.Cover the whole stock in this and wait for it to go tacky, it sticks to your glove but pulls away.
You need to put heaps in any corner as the cloth won't stay in tight bends.

Once the resin has gone tacky then coat the whole thing in eigt layers of 6oz cloth. Ideally use 50:50 ratio of cloth to resin by weight. Work the cloth well with a roller or brush ( cut the length of the bristles in half to make the brush stiffer) to get out any air bubbles.

Then walk away for a week.

Now flip it all over remove all the clay and the real eatate sign but leave the stock in the mold. Add more clay in the barrel channel etc and repeat the whole process.

Then cross your fingers and separate the two halvesof the mold, don't use anything metal to do this as it will scratch the mold. I used a plastic fish slice and a wooden spatula.
Once the molds have been separated wash them and then sand with 400, 600 and then 800 grit paper. Wash in between each paper.

Now you are good to go. Making the two halves of the stock is the same as making the mold. I didn't use enough of the resin in the corners around the edges of the barrel channel and when iremoed it from the mold the cloth pulled away leaving the resin sitting in the mold, cosmetic only, not a structural problem.

There are heaps of videos and websites out there on fibreglass molding, but almost nothing on making gunstock. But fibreglass is fibreglass.

It is definetly not hard to do. The last bit of fibreglassing I did was 30 years ago when an Uncle showed my brother and I how to reinforce our canoe hull.

Hope all this helps.

Stu.

 

[406pat]

That's awesome work! I've been thinking about pursuing something like this and what you've put down here really helps motivate. I do have a few more questions though.

Once you have molds done and prepped, I'm assuming you make the stock in the mold a half at a time then glue the two halves together right? Could you give a little bit more explanation on how you did that?

Also, how did you do the action area and barrel channel? Was it solid fiberglass which was then routered out when the two halves were put back together?

Was the forearm hollow? I know the butt was but what about the forearm?

Sorry for all the questions but now i'm excited!

-PJS

 

[300R]

Thanks for the info Stu,i think you have inspired a few people.

royinidaho,your stock looks great.