Who's got good wood

[Richard Simmons]

I'm looking to replace the stock and handguards on my CMP Danish Garand. I see ads for walnut and birch stock sets from Sarco, DuPage, Boyd's, etc. Any suggestions? I don't want something that will require much in the way of fitting though putting on the final finish is something I'd be happy to do. TIA

[Schuetzenman]

I've seen a Boyds stock and in fact did the inletting to fit the action into the stock for a buddy of mine at the store one night. What I was cutting on was the surface that the floorplate presses on when locking in the trigger assembly. Probably had to remove about 2 mm of wood there for it to lock in tight. His was prefinished with BLO from Boyds.

The rear handguards on Boyds Stocks use to be thicker than they should be. I'm not sure if they ever thinned them down. The stocks are also a bit thick side to side in the front. That said they do look really good on a rifle. It's the way I'd go if I was to get a new stock to put on a Garand from CMP. If you get the unfinished ones you could plane and rasp it down then sand it and you'd have closer to an original typical stock in dimensions.

I think they may have copied a Winchester stock. I've read that these were thicker than Springfield stocks.

[Richard Simmons]

Thanks. I had read recently that Boyd's was shipping factory seconds and such so I was wondering about others. I've also heard DuPage gets theirs from Boyd. The experience you had sounds about like what I'm looking for. Sorry to say my Garand experience is limited to say he least. The less I have to do on this one the better.

[Schuetzenman]

You will need a sharp flat chisel and or a sharp Exacto knife. Use a transfer black. Brownells sells an inletting black or transfer black substance. You can make your own out of vasaline and carbon black. Then you paint it on the metal where it's going to contact the stock. Attempt to lock in the trigger guard and you will see the areas where it hits hardest. Carefully remove thin like maybe 1 to 2 thicknesses of notebook paper cuts from the wood.

As you get closer to the trigger group locking in, switch to using the blade or chissel cutting edge as a scraper to shave wood away. Hold the edge 90° to the work surface and drag it with pressure against the wood. Very thin wood shavings will roll up off the blade, almost like caked dust. Pull with even pressure from start to finish or you might scrape out a dip or low spot in the wood. You want the wood to stay flat at the mating surface.

Nothing sucks like a bad fit between wood and metal on a fine weapon.

[parker]

If you want to go for the all-weather look, Fulton Armory sells a laminated stock for the M1 . I don't know how much fitting work is required with these stocks or how they are finished.