Are wood stocks ever functionally better than synthetic?
- Thread starter steelgray
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A well made synthetic stock is strong and accurate for sure as is a good laminated wood stock of hard wood applicable to making gun stocks, but many people lump all synthetics together, the same as laminated wood stocks .
As far as pure accuracy goes, I do not think one is much better than the other if both are properly made, but the well made laminated wood stocks are heavier than what I would want to hunt with.
Cat
As far as pure accuracy goes, I do not think one is much better than the other if both are properly made, but the well made laminated wood stocks are heavier than what I would want to hunt with.
Cat
This is one place where the wood stock may excel. I have wood stocks which are well over 100 years old (one is 150), and they are sound and look good. My oldest glass stock is shy of fifty years and still seems OK too. So, who knows? I have two hunting rifles in glass, but my favourites are wood. Neither type has failed me in any way over the last sixty years.
Licensed to kill
CGN Regular
- Location
- Peace Country Alberta
I have been reading the responses and giving this topic some thought. The point about the plastic stock scaring game by the un-natural noise made when contacting sticks and such was thought provoking. I have ZERO experience with anything other than a solid wood stock so I can to offer any anecdotal evidence one way or the other on anything other than solid wood. I also am NOT hard on my equipment (although the prettiest stock I have owned on a suppository rifle DID get broken off in an unscheduled rodeo but no synthetic stock would have faired any better). However, when I think of what my brother's solid wood stocked rifle has been through, I doubt that many, have seen the rough service that his has after 40 years of hunting including dozens of trips sheep hunting on horses and, while it LOOKS like it has been dragged through a mine field, it it still going strong and functionally, no synthetic/laminated stock would have served any better (apart from being lighter to pack up and down countless mountains). BTW, the most prolific and reliable military shoulder arm of all time, the AK-47 is stocked in solid wood LONG after synthetics have been available. I am not a military firearm buff but I do not recall ever seeing one stocked in anything OTHER than solid wood.
back to the ak they have been available in any kind of wood, laminate and synthetic but i doubt someone will find what is working better on that specific platform in canada ...
Tell that to someone who is paying a premium for 100 year old Westinghouse Micarta.
The point about the plastic stock scaring game by the un-natural noise made when contacting sticks and such was thought provoking.
If found it funny, of corse I have not owned every brand of plastic stock out there but to say it scared away moose I highly doubt it. My main go-to rifle for the last 30 years has been plastic. I call and hunt the thick stuff. Unless you put a marble in the stock from a spray can or banging on trees like your chopping wood there’s nothing different.
One bonus of stainless & plastic is you can drop them in a pond and years later come back clean it up and go hunting.
In theory anyway.
If found it funny, of corse I have not owned every brand of plastic stock out there but to say it scared away moose I highly doubt it. My main go-to rifle for the last 30 years has been plastic. I call and hunt the thick stuff. Unless you put a marble in the stock from a spray can or banging on trees like your chopping wood there’s nothing different.
One bonus of stainless & plastic is you can drop them in a pond and years later come back clean it up and go hunting.
In theory anyway.
I don't agree that there's no difference...a cheap hollow tupperware stock definitely sounds different, and a wee bit louder, than a wooden stock...but I don't think that it's significantly more likely to frighten game.
What it definitely will do, however, is remind you every time you hear that unique noise that you are carrying around a cheap-ass piece of bargain-basement plastic. If its function...to you...is just to sling bullets while reminding you how smart you were to spend as little as possible on a rifle...bingo! But, as mentioned earlier, if part of its function...to you...is to be beautiful...then it is a miserable failure.
Yeah...sure you can...
You started out this post sounding so reasonable...and then you came up with that...
Licensed to kill
CGN Regular
- Location
- Peace Country Alberta
I try to never discount anecdotal evidence on subjects that I know little to nothing about. If he says it has happened to him, then it did (as far as I am concerned). I was not there, he was.
How many people do you know that has done that??. It is not a "real" advantage if it is unlikely to ever happen. This is like saying that ?one bonus of stainless and plastic is that is non magnetic so just when you are lining up on that record whitetail you can't have some hidden electro magnet come on and pull the rifle off target.
- Location
- Steel Town
I suppose only time will tell how long the resins will stay stable.
Licensed to kill
CGN Regular
- Location
- Peace Country Alberta
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some people LIKE the looks (I am not one) and that if fine, they are not buying them to please me just like I do not buy what I buy to please anyone else. It is OK to like them, it is OK to dislike them, it is NOT OK, IMO to judge someone else's taste. To each his own.I don't agree that there's no difference...a cheap hollow tupperware stock definitely sounds different, and a wee bit louder, than a wooden stock...but I don't think that it's significantly more likely to frighten game.
What it definitely will do, however, is remind you every time you hear that unique noise that you are carrying around a cheap-ass piece of bargain-basement plastic. If its function...to you...is just to sling bullets while reminding you how smart you were to spend as little as possible on a rifle...bingo! But, as mentioned earlier, if part of its function...to you...is to be beautiful...then it is a miserable failure.
Yeah...sure you can...
You started out this post sounding so reasonable...and then you came up with that...
Licensed to kill
CGN Regular
- Location
- Peace Country Alberta
Since they typically do NOT spend their entire life out in the sun being pelted by UV light, I suspect that synthetic stocks will last for centuries, just like and non-abandoned wood stock rifle.
Point taken; quite correct. It's interesting to note, however, that while some may indeed like the look of a quality synthetic, that isn't the type of stock that is normally accused of being "noisy". The noise problem is normally associated with the absolute cheapest hollow-bodied injection-molded stocks...and while their defenders may point to their economy and supposed durability...I don't think I have ever heard anyone...ever...claim to admire their aesthetics.
I was specifically indicating that if a particular individual considers "prettiness" to be at least part of a rifle stock's function...then the Tupperware model falls short, IMHO. If there is somebody out there who thinks differently...well, I guess they are in luck!
Nobody's being forced to buy or use or like anything. Since taste is completely subjective...well, of course it is okay to judge someone else's taste. We do it every time we state our own tastes that differ; you like this...I like that...we are each judging the other to be incorrect...subjectively.
When Steyr-Mannlicher first introduced their synthetic stock ("Cycolac"?) 50 or 60 years ago, it was a "quality" product by the standards of the time. Yet, today, owners of the iconic SSG69 are frightened to use the stock (and, specifically, to allow cleaning solvent to contact the triggerguard/magazine unit) because of degradation and brittleness that results in cracking of the bottom "metal", which compromises the accuracy of a rifle whose sole reason for being is accuracy. Like many owners of this rifle, I resorted to expensive metal aftermarket replacements to use and enjoy my rifle without worry.
I'd bet that the cheapest synthetic stock available today is likely more resistant to such degradation than that top-of-the-line stock from a half-century ago.
Steyr discontinued that rifle series only a couple years ago; it was no longer the creme-de-la-creme of "sniper" rifles, but it still held up very well against the competition. I wasn't able to find out if the last production rifles used the same plastic formulation as the 1970's guns.
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some foreign sniper units were mocking the french units using wood on the frf1/frf2 in those days while they had the top of the notch fiber something ...
I don't agree that there's no difference...a cheap hollow tupperware stock definitely sounds different, and a wee bit louder, than a wooden stock...but I don't think that it's significantly more likely to frighten game.
What it definitely will do, however, is remind you every time you hear that unique noise that you are carrying around a cheap-ass piece of bargain-basement plastic. If its function...to you...is just to sling bullets while reminding you how smart you were to spend as little as possible on a rifle...bingo! But, as mentioned earlier, if part of its function...to you...is to be beautiful...then it is a miserable failure.
Yeah...sure you can...
You started out this post sounding so reasonable...and then you came up with that...
Beauty is as beauty does.
Beauty is as beauty does.
I think a better quote would be "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". That is a beautiful picture, perfectly-lit and -focused, well-composed, practically a studio shot...of a very serious-looking and business-like tool that looks like it just came out of the box. It is...to this beholder's eye...a gun that looks very capable, very worth owning and using, but "beautiful" isn't a term that leaps to mind. I have a few like it, and they have their uses.
By comparison, this ^ pic was taken in terrible lighting conditions, with tired cold fingers, and displays more attention paid to taking the damned picture and getting on with the job than to making it artistic. It's a crappy pic...but the rifle has a lovely piece of wood, a classy old gloss blued finish, lots of little scars and character marks it has picked up over the years, and it is in its element...in the elements...in the moment of exhaustion and exhilaration that is what I am really hunting for.
It almost seems as though the rifle in your pic should be in my pic, and vice versa, but I'm glad they're not.
