Thinking about a Laminate Stock

[D-4297]

Richards Micro Fit stocks are anything but plug and play. Looking like they were carved by an angry beaver, there will be a lot of personal fitting, pillaring, bedding, sanding and sanding and more sanding before finally ready for finishing, which requires more hours spent.

I bought an electric palm sander to help with the sanding and shaved many hours off the job. In the end it was well worth it though, and I got many a "pose for picture" requests at the local public range.

Fully understand what you're saying . I was doing double back-flips trying to be exceedingly polite . I had over Two Hundred hours of "Re-work" in mine , to get it up to showing it in public . Wore out four Dremel bits doing the re-clearancing to get the correct bedding depths , and several packs of triangle sanding pads . To say nothing of the sheets of sandpaper used to enlarge the barrel channel from pencil-sized Mosin-Nagant to a Krieger HV . But it was worth it in the end . And No . Hell No , I wouldn't buy another stock from them .

 

[Evan]

Fully understand what you're saying . I was doing double back-flips trying to be exceedingly polite . I had over Two Hundred hours of "Re-work" in mine , to get it up to showing it in public . Wore out four Dremel bits doing the re-clearancing to get the correct bedding depths , and several packs of triangle sanding pads . To say nothing of the sheets of sandpaper used to enlarge the barrel channel from pencil-sized Mosin-Nagant to a Krieger HV . But it was worth it in the end . And No . Hell No , I wouldn't buy another stock from them .

I have bought several from them but wouldn't recommend them to someone who is cross-shopping Boyds. I think the important thing to remember with Richard's Microfit is that you're not buying a stock, you're buying a piece of wood that resembles one. Your vision and hard work takes it the rest of the way. Most of mine have about 60 hours of work, but for the last 3, I just bought blanks; they ship faster and are cheaper. I can rough cut and inlet a blank in 4 hours now and end up not far from what they sell. The first couple stocks took a lot longer (maybe 100 hours) until I figured out where to move slow with sandpaper and where to move fast with a rasp and chisels.

 

[D-4297]

First laminate stock I ever did , and they were one of very few companies that did a M-N inletting five years ago . It was a great experience for me , and I really did need every bit of thirty-five years of tool & die knowledge to get through it . Got a very light touch with a dremel , from using a die grinder .

 

[Matches]

I just received three more Richards Microfit blanks and the wood is extremely nice compared to boyds.
They don't sell finished stocks.
The inletting on mine was spot on except for a little clearance work needed on the Jewell trigger safety. The barrel channels accepted a #17 barrel with minimal work.
The outside is where the work is. It is close and looks good out of the box but to get it looking like an old Weatherby Mark V it definitely takes some sanding.

 

[GNERGY]

Stockys Stocks carries a couple nice laminates. I have a couple of the Stockys Long Range Tacticals, really nice fit and finish. I have another on eon order.
Tarey