Gents;

I have a recent acquisition-a M70 pre64 in 300 H&H. It is defintely a shooter not a collector rifle. Coining Ray Atkinson's defintion-the stock is a "piece of exhibition grade drift wood", since stripped, steamed out and refinished a best I could. It has a hairline crack in the stock between the front receiver bolt and the barrel screw which I repaired using super glue after springing the wood apart a bit-the repair is holding, but I have only fired a handful of shots to date.

I want to install a cross-bolt. Visualizing the finsihed task is easy enough, but drilling the hole correctly is where I need advice. Obviously, I need to drill perpendicular and level through the wood just aft of the recoil tang. My question is- how far behind? How low/high in the wood is suggested or required?

Can I assume the recoil lug will not contact the bolt but still be bedded against wood? Will adding a cross bolt prevent cracking in the future?

I see that Talley sells a cross bolt, any comments or alternatives?

I appreciate your responses in advance!

BTW- I killed a nice Missouri Whitetail with it last week with. I like it a lot!

If you don't want to drill all the way threw; You might consider an internal bolt. Just mill a groove/trench about 3/8 in behind recoil lug, deep enough to cover a 1/4 threaded bolt. fill with acraglass and drop the bolt in.
Elton

This may not look pretty but it has worked for over 15 years now. The rifle is a Mark V Weatherby in 300 Weatherby Mag.. I got a really great deal on the rifle from an aquaintance so I bought it. When I was looking at it before the transaction, I noticed that there was a crack in the forearm ahead of the magazine well and another crack in the pistol grip at the back of the trigger guard and at the back of the bolt raceway. The price of the gun was right and I figured if nothing else I could buy a replacement stock of some type.

Being an amateur gunsmith, I decided to see if I could come up with some type of permannent fix that I would be happy with.

My solution, and as I say, I did this about 15 years or so back, and there has been no further splitting and I do use this rifle on a regular basis.

I removed the barrel/action and triggerguard/floorplate. I then drilled 3 holes, just large enoungh for a 10x32 screw to be pushed thru. For the screw in front of the magazine well and the one thru the pistol grip, I used a threaded cap and kept cutting the screws down, until the heads would pull down into the counter sunk holes I drilled on the right side of the stock and the caps would pull down into the countersinks I had drilled on the opposite side. When these were tightened down, the screw heads and the caps were level with the wood.

For the center screw, between the back of the magazine well and the mortise for the trigger assembly, I made a round, counter sunk brass washer that is larger in diameter than the head of the screw. For the opposite side I made another round brass washer, same diameter as th one the screw head would pull down into, and drilled and tapped it for the 10x32 screw.

It ain't pretty or fancy but it has stood up to the recoil of rifle without any further splitting in those areas.

Crazyhorse
The only criticism I have of your fix is that I think the forward cross bolt should be further back. I believe it would have added more strength if it was just behind the actions recoil lug(basically straight below the front scope ring).

But your fix has held and that is what really matters. It looks like that rifle gets some use.

BTW, I love those Buehler scopemounts.

quote:

Originally posted by Andrew cempa:
Can I assume the recoil lug will not contact the bolt but still be bedded against wood? Will adding a cross bolt prevent cracking in the future?

I see that Talley sells a cross bolt, any comments or alternatives?

I appreciate your responses in advance!

BTW- I killed a nice Missouri Whitetail with it last week with. I like it a lot!

Pro stockmakers drill the hole with a drill press or mill. Normally it is place just a bit back from the recoil lug and a but below the bottom of the receiver.

B-Square makes a great jig that allows us amateurs to place the hole correctly using a hand held drill. The jig clamps to the stock and indexes on the stocks recoil abutment.

B-Square also has the cross bolts and spanner wrenches to screw them in.

The Talley cross bolts are great, but the fact that Talley does not sell a spanner for them makes them a PITA for the amateur.

Midway shows the B-Square tool as being out of production and I do not see it on B-Square's website. Darn as I have meant to buy one for some time. Maybe Brownells still has some stock?

quote:

I believe it would have added more strength if it was just behind the actions recoil lug(basically straight below the front scope ring).

The picture doesn't show it real well, but from the center line of the brass thru screw to the center line of the front screw of the floor plate is right at 1/2 inch.

The front thru screw is has a thinbit of stock wood between it and the mortice cut for the front recoil lug. I felt having that little bit of wood would help.

Many Thanks for the comments and yes all of my rifles are used hard.

May you and yours have a Happy Thanksgiving.

ebay

I picked up a few sets of these crossbolts, they are for M70 supergrade stocks. I really like the way they look and appear to be easy to install.

Hi all,

Being the frugal Scotsman, I make spanners for cross bolts out of small 1/4" drive sockets for any size cross bolt. Grind two sides of the socket away leaving 2 opposing posts to fit the bolt head pockets. Takes longer to find the correct size socket than to do the grinding.

Luck,

Stephen

I use two jigs from Brownells one for the forward cross bolt and one modified to work on the rear..I would not attempt to drill a stock without the jigs, its just too easy to drift off course..

Actually on a 300 H&H I would just glass bed the tang, recoil lug and about 3 inches of barrel under the chamber area and call it good. If one wanted to dig out the wood and place a threaded screw or section of threaded screw material in the middle of the lug and then glass the recoil lug that works as well as cross bolts..

On a 9.2x63 Husky I had that has split out. I used a screw in the recoil lug and use to cut off 9.2x63 case heads for the outside, being sure to keep the caliber upright on both sides and it really came out neat..Glass bedded the whole rifle..The owner loves it..

Nothing is nicer than Exhibition Drift Wood on a hunting rifle, one does not have to pamper it.

Ins talling crossbolts on a Sava[IMG]

Machining the spanner wrenches.

Savage 416 Taylor........... Learning to post these photos was like trying to heard cats.