Modifying a carbon fiber stock -- need advice....

[7mm man]

I have a Stockys carbon fiber stock for my LA Savage. Nice light stock -- but due to Savage endless changes in bottom metal, bolt release etc, I am going to need to do some mods.

I am a pretty proficient woodworker. I have sharp chisels and a couple small gouges down to 1/4" I also have a nice selection of 1/8" dremel rotary rasp, stones, files etc. I am less proficient with my dremel tool (though the tool is a joy, an M12 cordless Milwaukee that I can really recommend).

Can I use the chisels to just start taking layer after layer off? Can you "crosscut" a carbon fiber stock? Like cutting endgrain in wood? Wood works with the grain easy (though the grain can sometimes "pull" your tool into the grain, creating a flaw. Does carbon fiber do this? Or is it fairly homogenous?

I have read about using a little paint or super glue, or gel coat to seal afterwards. Not so worried about that. I have a selection of wet/dry sand paper that I might use with a little water to clean up things, but realistically, the modifications are all going to be inside the receiver channel. So who really cares what it looks like, as long as its stable.

Thanks for the advice in advance.....

So I modified an AG Composites BDL hinged floor plate style to an M5 style about a year ago. I just traced the outline of the bottom metal and hit that with a dremmel. There is tons of dust. The M5 had to go in the stock a bit further so I had to sand/dremmel out the inside a little as well. This part was a little more difficult as it had pillars already formed inside the stock. Once again, the dremmel, files and sand paper was my friend. Once I was done I bedded the area to even everything out and get rid of any loose plat due me doing it by hand. It turned our pretty good, but took a long time. If you have a good gun smith near you I recommend just getting them for a major job like I did. I live in an area with very little gun smiths, so I do everything myself.

 

[cdherman]

How did it turn out?

What bottom metal did you use?

I just received my Stockys Hunter for 110LA that I am going to build. It is an older top bolt release with blind mag. What did you do for bottom metal or other mods needed to make this stock work?

Well obviously its been a bit since you asked. I had a wedding -- my daughters -- and that sort of sucked up my time.

I worked on the stock yesterday and today. I am a novice at this. Both in terms of carbon fiber and inletting. I probably removed too much and now will need to bed the base metal. It was rocking and I could not figure out where. Ended up removing stuff where I didn't need to.

The top/side bolt release was a PITA. Here's what I learned that might be of use for someone. The bolt release rotates when the trigger is pulled. There is an area forward of the release that also must be removed on the Stocky stock.

As for bottom metal -- I have original metal bottom with detachable mag. Had to hog out a lot of material to get it in, and I removed stuff from the wrong place. I am not sure you can get that metal to retrofit a blind mag set-up. There are later plastic bottom stuff and those take a different magazine, also hard to find. The Stocky's seems to be set up for the plastic base metal. I have that -- let me know if you want it. That is the easy part however. The mags were un-obtanium earlier in the year.

Overall the stock feels nice. But were I to do it again, I wouldn't..... Have not yet shot it.

Kind of sucks that Savage ruined its kind of neat feature -- the barrel nut and end user capability to swap barrels -- by changing the bolt release and bottom metal so often that aftermarket stock makers are pretty much overwhelmed.

Oh, and as for how -- some areas I removed with a router and a little 3/16 straight carbide bit. I was able to "create" a pair of wood guides that I could clamp in my woodworking bench and then remove material very carefully. In the base metal area. Too bad I removed the wrong material at times. I tried candle soot. I was just off. Period. In the trigger area, I used a carbide burr and my Dremel tool. Tool worked fine. Operator had issues figuring out where it was hitting.

In the end, I did not ruin it. Will need some bedding. Probably was going to need that anyhow.

 

[Darryle]

In the future, order you some inlet black or follow the online recipes. It will allow you to see these high spots and work them down.

Fast is not friendly when it comes to inletting or fitting.

It's a great learning experience regardless.

 

[RWE]

Thank you all for the wisdom, thank you cdherman!