I was thinking about replacing the factory Stock on my Savage heavy barrel .223 rifle with a Bell & Carlson Duramaxx stock and was wondering if anyone has had any experiences with them, good or bad?

Have had one on my Savage 12FV (accutrigger) for about six months. A very big improvement over the OEM stock. It fit almost perfectly, and I only had to remove a little material at the very back of the trigger group recess to get it perfect. It is pillar bedded, and shot great right away. I then did a light skim bedding job, and with the Pac-Nor 27" SSSM barrel in .223 AI, it shoots 0.6" 5 shot groups at 200 yards. Definitely a good stock for the money.

P45,
B&C has been making the Reminton 700 VS factory stocks for several years now(not HS precision,who made the first ones).Remington seems to think they are pretty swell.

The Bell and Carlson stocks are well made by good,honest hardworking midwest folk and sell at a VERY fair price.What more could a guy ask for???

The two B&C stocks that I have had are made from "Carbelite". This material is kind of soft and compresses from the constant pressure of the stock screws. It's not nearly as good as walnut in this respect. Thus the screws need constant tightenting over the months. This means that the point of impact and grouping changes also.

That is not a good thing.

I complained to B&C about the first stock doing that and they said that they were defective. I had bought that stock second hand although it had never been used. The material had some holes in it in the bedding area.

B&C insisted that I must get their "magnum" model or whatever that is as I had a 7mm WSM! Otherwise the new stock would have been free. It only cost me about $55 for the upgrade anyway and they shipped it very fast.

B&C suggested their stock with the bedding block. I did not want it due to the extra weight it has. Now the new stock does the same thing as the old one does. I mark the SS screws and floor plate with a marker so I know they are getting loose.

On the postitive side this material is very easy to file or sand and seems as if it would hold any bedding material. Also the recoil with the stock is very low. The material seems to soak up recoil and they have an excellent recoil pad as well.

The game season is here now. This winter I will but some spacers around the forward and rear screws ala Mauser on this M 70.

I would buy another B&C stock. Just put spacers in first.

JG,

HHHMMMMM.........

My info came directly from the mouth of the president and owner of Bell and Carlson as of last November '02.I live in the same town that the B&C factory is in.

Are you sure your M700 rifles were made very recently(sooner than 2 years ago)???I ask that because we just got a rifle in our shop from Davidsons the other day(a Marlin .22mag bolt gun) and by the serial number prefix it was made THREE years ago!!!

Just thought I'd ask as you could have gotten two older rifles that were asssmebled before the changeover to the B&C stocks.I have to pick up a stock bank for a friend this week at B&C so I'll ask about the Remington stocks when I am there.

Just to set the record straight.......

Thanks for the good info I just got my new B&C duramaxx stock. A very nice stock, I can't believe they sell for no more than they do. I haven't had a chance to shoot the rifle with the new stock yet, the weather here has been a tad brisk the last couple of days. But the stock is a vast improvement over the savage stock.

Sharpsman, When I called Remington to ask when my rifle was made, they gave me a date of Nov. 2002, I bought it Jan 2nd 2003, my son's rifle I didn't inquire about, that was a new rifle directly from the repair shop since the last VSSF had a warped barrel, that rifle was sent back to me July of 2002. Oh, and when I sent my VS back to Remington repair shop for the barrel leaning against the left side if the barrel, due to a reciever that was not sanded enough on one side, of course Remington is going to blame the stock, they put another HS stock on it, this was back in June, so even they're parts dept. has HS stocks in stock, I've also contacted B&C(via e-mail) back in May I believe it was, about who is making the stocks for Remington's Varmint rifles, I was told HS was currently, Jay

[ 11-02-2003, 21:13: Message edited by: Jay Gorski ]