Are cracked stocks worth fixing?

[TexMex247]

Recently, a buddy of mine had some guns he was letting go of. Among them a 1983 production 10/22. It has a nicely checkered wood stock but it is cracked. The crack extends from the back of the reciever and around the grip. If you flex it the right way, you can see it open up a bit. Since it's only a 22, I was tempted to use some wood glue and filler and refinish it. He is wanting to sell it and several other guns but does not want to put any money into them. Is woodglue gonna hold up over time, or is this a lost cause ? Any advice is appreciated, including tips on what kind of finishing kit to use. Thanks ya'll - Texmex

 

[cowboy45]

If it has a checkered stock, it is the deluxe and they are worth more than the standard, because of the stock. Depending on the price you could always find a used standard stock or use it as a base for a custom. sounds like a pretty good crack. One way to fix some cracks is to break it completely and then put it back together, and refinsih. trying to get glue in the crack is hard and doesn't look great. Used 10-22 are hot items for building your own HOT ROD rifle. I have one done and about to start on another. Warning to you sir!!!!! You can drop a lot of cash building one if you get carried away, but what the hell. The ammo is cheap. I had one that I sold that would keep silver dollar size groups at 100 on a good day.

 

[BurkGlocker]

This is where my dilemma would surface... Since it is a 10/22, there are so many aftermarket stocks out there that it could easily be replaced. I honestly dont know if it being an '83 model would matter, because manufacturers change so much throughout the years. But where you say it is broken, it seems like a pretty bad break, and stock replacement might be the only way.

I've heard stories from the old days of Native Americans using wet leather and brass nails to fix broken stocks and when the leather dried, it would tighten around the stock, making them as strong as original and dressing the rifle up in the process. Jsut had to throw that in there... LOL

Good luck on your search though...

BG

 

[Jason]

A friend of mine is looking for a busted 10/22 so let me know if you decide to pass on it... What else does he have and what is wrong with them?

 

[TexMex247]

Other stuff

He also has an 83' winchester 94 saddle ring carbine(totally keepin' it), a 1924or25 Lefever 20 ga SxS in perfect workin' order, a 53' Rem. wingmaster 16ga "corncob" pump(also has a small crack in the stock), a Savage model110 in .243 made who knows when, and the 10/22. The 10/22 is missing the extractor,ext. spring and extractor plunger. I stripped it down today and decided to install an 08' trigger group and keep the old metal housing one for one of my projects. It will be a "frankengun" when I'm done with it but I will make sure it's 100% before i sell it. Once I fix it, I will be looking to get $150 even with the broken stock and wear on it. He has set some prices on his other stuff but the 10/22 and 94 carbine are already mine.

 

[Outbreak]

I've fixed Garand stocks with Liquid Nails. We broke the stocks all the time during drill team practice in college. We had very limited funds to buy new stocks, so we bought one really nice set for performances, and used a different crappy set for practice. I glued a lot of them back together. They never broke in the same place twice.

 

[Texasjack]

The real question is whether you are trying to maintain value or trying to keep it usable. For value, a crack is a crack, repaired or not. The only real choice is to repair it.

As for being usable, a good job of gluing the stock back together will work just fine. With a good epoxy, it's more likely to break in the wood than in the glued portion. That requires doing a good job and clamping it well.

Sometimes stocks crack because they are not sealed well, or because the wood is badly flawed inside the stock. You can't do much about a flaw, but you can work to make sure it's sealed and not affected by changes in moisture.

 

[TheDan]

...or if you're looking for something more "tactical":

 

[Texasjack]

That's funny! Not particularly helpful, but funny.

 

[CanTex]

I have a .22 that was cracked just behind the receiver. It was easy to repair by taking a a wood bit, drilling a hole through both pieces, then glued in an oak dowel (sized for the bit) into the hole. ( I drilled the hole before the two parts were separated completely ).This helped bring both pieces together and has worked for a couple years without any problems. If looks are a big issue, you can look for the appropriate wood type and create your own dowels. Just check for direction of grain before you glue in the dowel to get the best match.

Hope this helps better than duct tape..

 

[TexMex247]

I think I'm gonna glue it and clamp it together just to see how well the glue holds. I have already decided to rebuild the rifle using a bunch of new stuff, so what is the worst that could happen? The dowel idea sounds like a more permanent and professional repair, I might consider that phase 2 if the glue doesn't hold.

 

[CanTex]

Tried the glue and clamp... it did not hold very long. Other suggestion, pick up a wooden "button or plug" ( used to cover screws in wood chairs etc, available at Lowes/HD/Wall Mart ), drill a hole sufficient to install the plug then drill a smaller hole to insert a screw into. Glue up your split, use the screw to pull everything together, install the plug and trim to fit.

 

[TheDan]

I don't really have much experience in repairing wood, but I know for when you're repairing a crack in metal, you should drill a hole at each end of the crack. This helps relieve the pressure of the crack and the rounded holes at the end are less likely to crack again. You then fill in or weld the crack. Would a similar method work with wood, drilling the ends and then filling the crack and holes with wood filler putty? If it did work, you could then paint it to hide your repair.

 

[CanTex]

I don't really have much experience in repairing wood, but I know for when you're repairing a crack in metal, you should drill a hole at each end of the crack. This helps relieve the pressure of the crack and the rounded holes at the end are less likely to crack again. You then fill in or weld the crack. Would a similar method work with wood, drilling the ends and then filling the crack and holes with wood filler putty? If it did work, you could then paint it to hide your repair.

It does work for wood, just think back to the old style clothes pins (without the metal springs). That being said however it would not work in this instance. Stocks usually have nice grained wood which would split along the grain. This would result in a crack that is not smooth enough across the face of the split to use this repair. Also, the wood filler provides no "strength" to the repair to resist cracking again should the stock be dropped or when it flexes. To fix the stock some method of reattaching the two pieces must be used in addition to just glue.

Were it an expensive or rare wood that had cracked, I would continue the crack until I had two pieces. I would then glue a pin (wood dowel) or two into one side of the split, make holes that mated the other side to these pins then glue the other side of the pin as well as the crack and re-assemble. However...getting two sets of pins to line up exactly is a difficult task.

Another part of the issue is how you get the right clamping force on rounded or curved stocks.... Use of bungee cord or surgical tubing does work better than trying to get a few clamps in place.

That is another reason why I like the drill and peg method. It is quick, relatively easy, almost foolproof and lends itself to using clamps to hold everything while drying.

Just my 50 cents worth.....

 

[TexMex247]

It's settin' in a clamp right now with liquid nails injected into the crack. I'm thinking about counter sinking a screw through the crack into a piloted but undersized hole. Then covering it with a filler and shaping it. We'll see how it turns out.

 

[DoubleOBar]

The stock can be fixed to be as strong as befor, but wood glue isn't the way to go. You will want to use Acra-glas and some small dowels. There is a guy named Candyman on the Mil-Surp forum that has lots of stickies on this kind of stuff.

 

[ROGER4314]

That's not the way I'd go at all. There are tens of thousands of 10-22 stocks floating around from folks who restock their rifles. I have two wood stocks and one synthetic Ruger stock stored in a corner myself. They are so easy to come by that it's hardly worth the trouble to glue one. In fact, Midway sells the OEM Ruger stocks for a very affordable price.

If the stock was basically sound, I've tried another technique just for grins. I bought a used 10-22 and the stock looked like someone used it for a baseball bat. I mixed up some quick set epoxy, filled the dents and damage then sanded the whole stock. Used some Wally World flat black paint and screwed a comb riser onto it to raise it up to scope level. I had a spare Ruger barrel....brand new from a project rifle and a Tasco scope from another job. Put together, it looked great and the flat black finish is very durable. If it gets scratched, I'll get the WW paint can back out and shoot it again.

I liked the finished rifle so much that I ordered some Volquartsen goodies and rebuilt the trigger!

Flash

 

[MR Redneck]

If its a M1 Garand or something of the same classic value, then hell yea..