I recently purchased a mauser rifle that somebody had fitted with a semi inlet stock. whoever it was did a fairly nice job, exept in a few places on the fore and aft part of the bottom metal where he or she left some noticeable gaps.

which is the better fix, to find some matching walnut, cut some strips and glue it on, and then reinlet, or just mix some sawdust with some glass bedding compound and put it in the cracks.

What do the "pros" do when they are working with a very expensive blank and somehow have an accident.

I'm also interested in in hearing how to fix unsightly gaps.A member once posted about a gunsmith that wets the area, then hammers it to a pulp, mix in epoxy and then re-inlet.

Try bedding the barrel in Bedrock. To float the barrel simply wrap the barrel in some type of tape and apply a release agent over the tape. Then you can bed the barrel and once the beding has set you can pull out the barrel by removing the tape. You'll have a clearance of about a few thousandths of an inch between the bedding and barrel.

Depending on the size of the gap I will do one of the following.

Take a 1/4 wide punch and peen (sp??) the wood over to fill the gap.

Spray the metal with release agent. Mix up some 5 minute epoxy. Get some matching wood chips. With the metal in the stock put the epoxy on the chips and pound them into the gap.

Seems to work for me.

22WRF, it is far better to put some matching wood in than try to match the wood with a sawdust epoxy paste.

Every time I tried epoxy and sawdust it turned black anyway.

I am sure everyone has their favorites, but this is what has worked for me. Warning, I am not a "professional" stock maker, but I am likely older than many. That has given me more time to make and fix mistakes.

If this is a large gap, you might carved a sliver out of the barrel channel and glued it in using standard yellow wood glue. Make it proud, then re-inlet. The joint line will not be visible if it is done with the grain.

If the gap is narrow, try to get the wood to swell with a steam iron, then soak with thin liquid epoxy to stabilize.

The only time I have had epoxy look good is when I mixed it with some lamp black so it looked like a small mineral streak. I have not been able to "match" shades or embed chips or sawdust and have it look decent.

Roger

I am NOT a talented woodworker, so I think I would find it easier to change the guard out to one made with lock screws. You can weld up the lock screw holes, sculpt the guard, and probably fill the gap with blued steel!

Clemson

quote:

You can weld up the lock screw holes, sculpt the guard, and probably fill the gap with blued steel!

I believe even some of the non locking guards are different in length. I know my FN is a touch different than the MKX.
I had one on a darker piece of wood that had a 1/16" gap in front of the guard. What I did was put release on the metal and then dyed my epoxy gel black and worked it in the gap. Sanded it smooth and finished it. While I can see it 95+% would never notice. The black epoxy looks like metal.