A friend just had some damage to his collection compliments of hurricane Dennis and a dead sump pump. The buttstocks were standing in about three inches of water. He asked me if he should remove the recoil pads to allow for quicker drying. I told him drying quickly was generally a bad thing for wood, but when I thought about it more I wondered if they shouldn't be dried quicker for the metals sake and the fact that if the wood swells too much in the inletting being confined by the action geometry could cause some splitting.

As of now I'm tempted to pull the metal for its own sake and let the wood dry in low temp/low humidity. Any suggestions?

Thanks.

If only the buttstocks got wet, I'd simply allow them to air dry (assuming that you can get some reasonably low humidity to work with, inside an airconditioned residence is fine if the air is too damp naturally.)

In my experience, a glossy finish may turn cloudy, but don't panic -- it returns to its clear appearance when dry. An oil finish might need a rub down with linseed when fully dried out.

Just keep the metal dry and coated with oil, unless the water has wicked all the way up to the tang area, in which case the metal probably should come out of the stock. I would take off wet buttplates and recoil pads only if it appears that the moisture could rust the mounting hardware.

I'd remove the stocks from the actions as well as the recoil pads, buttplates, gripcaps, etc. And as you say, let the wood dry in low temp/humidity. Any metal left in contact with wet or moist wood will rust or corrode very quickly.

In the buttstock I would remove the recoil pad, grip cap, swivels and strip the finish, dry the butt area as much as possible with a hair dryer..then refinish the stock. You shouldn't have any problem since the wood has already been cured and doesn't take the same process to cure as it originally did.....Mostly you need to draw the moisture out of it..

Short of refinish I would just hit the area that was contaminated with some sandpaper, a hair dryer or some kind of heat, then try to match the finish as best I could..

Any drying process short of several years would just be a waste of time...fortunatly the moisture that it absorbed will be very little I suspect and mostly surface stuff as the gun had a finish on it, and the last 3 inches of the butt would not likey cantaminate the complete stock IMO>....

Thanks fellas. It was a shame to see; one Superposed had a split in the finish five inches long and all had about 1/16" of proud wood at the buttpads.

The winner? Colt CAR-15.

I have finally seen an environment where I prefer synthetic to wood- standing water.