I took it apart as I do now and then to look at things. I had a new pad put on, a Pachmeyer Triple Mag and while inspecting the stock closely I saw this:

You are looking into the magazine cutout from the bottom, to the left you can see the trigger cavity and the part just above my finger is the wood between the trigger cavity and the mag cutout. You can also see small cracks across the Tru-Oil varnish covering this. They've been there for a long time.

The crack I am pointing towards extends up around the tip of the knife. I have given this some thought and I want to get small Grade 8 capscrews, using the threaded portion, have them TIGed into a "U" with the "arms" going up towards the front of the magazine cutout. Then bedding them in with the hardest, toughest epoxy you guys can recommend. I was thinking of using four "U's" to do this.

Thoughts, opinions?

[ 09-29-2002, 02:12: Message edited by: Roger Rothschild ]

Roger,
Is this a natural wood stock? From the limited view it looks it. That would be why I would be leaning toward a laminate for my .500 . What action is it also ? I will be utilizing a P-14..How many rounds downrange ? Is there crossbolts already ? Has anybody asked this many questions without answering yours ? 45nut

Yes,
Natural wood and very pretty too. Two crossbolts. The standard A-Square Coil-Chek stock. Fully bedded.

Roger email me your address & I will send you a couple of special screws to repair the crack.

Bear Claw, last time I offered to do that exact same thing I got slapped!

Roger---

It looks like a shrinkage crack in way too much epoxy to me.....or is that an illusion?

Mr. Belk,

The previous owner told me he didn't like the original finish and re-did the rifle in Tru-Oil. I have looked carefully at the entire interior and have found no evidence of the rifle being rebedded. What the man did was to coat any interior surface with quite a bit of Tru-Oil. This is how I found the crack. I thought it was just the varnish being cracked so you can see where I took a small rounded gouge and removed it to reveal the wood. The wood does have the crack running in it and the varnish (thank the Lord) carried the crack up so it was easily seen. I suspect this is a weak spot since there is an almost vertical line in the wood where a stress to the living tree occurred. It is darker than the surrounding wood and not part of the normal grain. It is visible on the other side.
You can see where the P-14 bolt stop relief is, the dark line I suspect being the weak point runs from it down to the magazine cutout. I do not know if you'll be able to see it but a tiny portion of the crack is visible peeking around the edge above the knife.

The first thing I'll do is use my small tools and remove all this varnish, it really is quite thick. How long it took the gentleman to build up those coats I don't know.
I have almost 1000 rounds through this rifle now, from low velocity lead bullets just over the speed of sound to rattle your noodle full-on elephant stoppers. It distresses me to see my warhorse getting fatigued.
I am not going to do anything rash, I am taking this one step at a time. I'll see what these screws are that Bear Claw is sending me and take it from there. Obviously I need to get the area cleaned up and so a better evaluation can be made.
Thank you for responding.

I have looked on the board using the search feature and the search word "Devcon" and found several posts that led me to bookmark two sites. One of which I will contact Monday to buy a pound of powdered stainless steel to make a chicken lips hard mix of epoxy.

[ 09-29-2002, 10:20: Message edited by: Roger Rothschild ]