Jungle carbine furniture problem (?)

[TargetAcquired]

My collection of #4's was looking loney, so I grabbed up my first JC. I've shot one before, but thuis is the first one I've owned. Everything looks good, she matches through and through, and the headspace is perfect.

One thing I'm unsure of is the barrel-top wood - it's a little loose. All the other wood is rock solid, and none of it - including the top piece, is cracked, etc. The barrel bands are original, and don't look like they've been removed.

The loose wood is not rattling around like crazy, but it has some obviously play. I have not yet had the time to shoot this rifle, so i can't comment on performance, but this issue aside I am expecting good results.

Is the wood something I should be dealing with? If it has no chance of ruining my fun in terms of performance or accuracy I'm inclined to leave her be, but if anyone has an opinion about it I'm all ears.

 

[points]

Could be the wood is dried up just enough to shrink it. An easy fix is to make a thin wood shaving and glue it over the groove under the band. stain to match and your problem will go away.

 

[Cdn303]

My No5 had the same problem. All I did was take some brown shipping paper cut into strips and built them up in the band channel, using BLO as a sort of glue/water barrier to keep moisture of the underside of the band.

 

[5THBATT]

Dont shoot it untill you have fixed it, it will damage the woodwork as the top wood will move under recoil taking along with it the band rocking it back & forth.

 

[TheTooner]

Strip varnish or laquer and soak that piece in linseed oil. It was part of routine maintenance to remove stocks and soak them in linseed oil at regular intervals (not short intervals, at least a year between treatments, if I recall correctly.)