tiriaq answered well, and yes, you can bet it will be required down the road.
Stock damage from overtightened screws, what would you do?
- Thread starter Pneumaniatic
- Start date
tiriaq answered well, and yes, you can bet it will be required down the road.
- Location
- Blaster land, Okanagan BC
Do you have much room to play with between the diameter of the action screws and the stock holes, are they pretty much the same or is the hole larger? The hole being open on the inner side complicates pillars a bit but if the hole is large it might be fine, I’m guessing the trigger guard holes are a tighter fit and they line things up for the action holes in conjunction with the inlet for the trigger guard.
Maybe just some steel tubing of the correct inner/outer size would work if the stock holes are oversize to begin with, it’s a rimfire so I doubt the torque values on the action screws are all that high. Guys have used threaded lamp tube for pillars for center fire rifles in the past, it’s fairly thin walled, something like that would work if you have the clearance on the stock holes.
Maybe just some steel tubing of the correct inner/outer size would work if the stock holes are oversize to begin with, it’s a rimfire so I doubt the torque values on the action screws are all that high. Guys have used threaded lamp tube for pillars for center fire rifles in the past, it’s fairly thin walled, something like that would work if you have the clearance on the stock holes.
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- Location
- Blaster land, Okanagan BC
Seems like there’s clearance on the 455 if the pillars sit past and into the inlet hole, they clear the mag well assembly. Just need to find appropriate pillar tubes and drill out the stock holes to fit.
Aluminum-Titanium Arrow shafts make some of the best pillars. They're very light, thin and super strong.
Usually the left over bits from custom arrows at a shop that does such things can be had for free or very cheap out of the scrap bins. Often they come in 10+cm lengths and can be had in a couple of different diameters.
Very easy to work with and shape to the contours needed, with basic tools, such as a small hand held pipe cutter, hacksaw and a file.
A good bedding compound or trigger guard shims (which are basically just washers of varying thicknesses). This is a common issue with tikkas too and many places sell shim kits for them. You might need to do some filing to get the shims to fit perfectly, but not exactly complicated work.
That's only a temporary fix and won't stop the wood from crushing again or more.
It won't be as good as pillars, but wood fiber does not have an unlimited amount of "crush".... I have some scrap plywood blocks I use on my vehicle jack, the blocks are crushed with the imprint of the top of the hydraulic jack but they have not continued to crush and easily lift thousands of pounds with no sign of further crush.
At some point crushed wood fibre will resist the force that initially crushed it.
Bedding alone without pillars would also be prone to failure if the force exceeds the previous "crush" and hard epoxy will likely crack if the wood below it can't support it.
If CZ had extended the rear of the metal further back and widened the surface area around bolt it likely would be less common of an issue, that said there is no shortage of "guten-tite" torque specialists out there who should put down the screwdrivers and stick to arm wrestling!
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It won't be as good as pillars, but wood fiber does not have an unlimited amount of "crush".... I have some scrap plywood blocks I use on my vehicle jack, the blocks are crushed with the imprint of the top of the hydraulic jack but they have not conditioned to crush and easily lift thousands of pounds with no sign of further crush.
At some point crushed wood fibre will resist the force that initially crushed it.
Bedding alone without pillars would also be prone to failure if the force exceeds the previous "crush" and hard epoxy will likely crack if the wood below it can't support it.
If CZ had extended the rear of the metal further back and widened the surface area around bolt it likely would be less common of an issue, that said there is no shortage of "guten-tite" torque specialists out there who should put down the screwdrivers and stick to arm wrestling!
Can-down, one of the reasons your plywood buffer plates are resistant to crush and hold together is because of the ''cross grain fibres'' reinforced with resin to create the laminate structure, which is multiple times stronger than any regular piece of wood.
The only time the crush will stop is when the fibers have collapsed completely or broken up, at which point they will no longer have any usable strength.
I've seen the same thing with regular wood in over 30 years of construction.... it's not just plywood with cross grain laminates.
For my use the ply is better as it won't split or crack as easily but that's a different issue then the crushing of the fibre.
Not sure why you think the compressive strength of the wood won't be usable after the fibres have been compressed?
That has not been my experience.
My jack blocks are clearly seeing a fair bit more pressure then the OP's rifle....
Bedding with epoxy is basically a molded shim and will still be dependant on what's below it for strength same as a shim made from another material.
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Thanx for this and I respect your observations.
My observations with crushed, compressed wood has been similar on some occaisions but completely different on others.
For instance I saw a very large compressor being used on a ski hill that was mounted on a very heavy wooden beam frame. This compressor and it's Diesel Engine prime mover were being towed around the hill with a Sno Cat.
The frame was beat to hell and compressed anywhere the through bolts were used for mounting.
The crew were constantly tightening the nuts on the through bolts, to the point the mount pad on the Engine and Compressor had penetrated at least an inch into the 12x12 beams.
I cringed when thought about the alignment and coupling between the Engine/Compressor, which was enclosed in a solid metal covering.
I went over to the crew and spoke with the guy in charge (nice guy) The coupling was a flexible type I'd never seen before and the rpms weren't fast enough to require the precise alignment I was used to building in when I installed such equipment. This was a typical centrifical compressor that they attached a water hose to the outlet to create artificial snow.
He told me the unit had been built over five years previously, towed all over the ski slopes and was loose and sloppy but it still held together well, if the crew kept and eye on things and tightened the nuts on the bolts as needed.
The thing is, the bolts needed constant attention.
The broken/compressed bits were no longer doing their job or adding to the strength of the assembly, but they held well enough.
Being in construction you also know that such assemblies have a ''legally mandatory'' strength ratio and as long as that ratio is within limits all should be well.
Take wooden step ladders for instance. If you're on a job and you happen to have one on the job and it has a compressed, broken or cracked rung or stringer, that ladder has to be declared and tagged as unsafe, then repaired or scrapped, even if it was new when the day started. An employer getting caught with one will get a warning at the very least and if an accident occurs and the ladder is part of the blame??????
I'm not saying the rifles stock will be unsafe but I am saying it will be a constant problem. Right now I'm in the middle of repairing a 60+ year old Model 37 Ithaca 12ga pump shotgun with a butt stock design that is weak at best, where the pistol grip face is held against the reciever by a through bolt.
It's not worth finding a new or used butt stock for so I'm beefing up and repairing the mating surface with epoxy and letting it cure very hard.
The wood is compressed to the point the fibers are broken and the fellow that used to own it had taken off the butt plate and had been tightening it before ''Duck Season" every year for the past twenty or so to keep it shooting and hopefully prevent it from breaking, until he was finished.
It lasted, but it wasn't acceptable IMHO and a constant worry.
The cracks that were present are now properly glued, but still visible and the mating surface once again matches the receiver.
Is this stock as good as it was new, strength wise or worry wise??? Not IMHO but it's way better than it was when I got it and well within the strength and worry free parameters I look for in a hunting shotgun.
These rifles don't get better with shims. The epoxy is not "just a shim'' again IMHO. It fills completely and adheres to the wood, thereby strengthening it and when the stamped metal trigger guard is remounted and torqued down, distributes the force across a wider area, without worrying about the area being compressed again, especially if pillars are also added and the area on the other side has been epoxy bedded as well, keeping everything from moving even slightly during recoil.
My observations with crushed, compressed wood has been similar on some occaisions but completely different on others.
For instance I saw a very large compressor being used on a ski hill that was mounted on a very heavy wooden beam frame. This compressor and it's Diesel Engine prime mover were being towed around the hill with a Sno Cat.
The frame was beat to hell and compressed anywhere the through bolts were used for mounting.
The crew were constantly tightening the nuts on the through bolts, to the point the mount pad on the Engine and Compressor had penetrated at least an inch into the 12x12 beams.
I cringed when thought about the alignment and coupling between the Engine/Compressor, which was enclosed in a solid metal covering.
I went over to the crew and spoke with the guy in charge (nice guy) The coupling was a flexible type I'd never seen before and the rpms weren't fast enough to require the precise alignment I was used to building in when I installed such equipment. This was a typical centrifical compressor that they attached a water hose to the outlet to create artificial snow.
He told me the unit had been built over five years previously, towed all over the ski slopes and was loose and sloppy but it still held together well, if the crew kept and eye on things and tightened the nuts on the bolts as needed.
The thing is, the bolts needed constant attention.
The broken/compressed bits were no longer doing their job or adding to the strength of the assembly, but they held well enough.
Being in construction you also know that such assemblies have a ''legally mandatory'' strength ratio and as long as that ratio is within limits all should be well.
Take wooden step ladders for instance. If you're on a job and you happen to have one on the job and it has a compressed, broken or cracked rung or stringer, that ladder has to be declared and tagged as unsafe, then repaired or scrapped, even if it was new when the day started. An employer getting caught with one will get a warning at the very least and if an accident occurs and the ladder is part of the blame??????
I'm not saying the rifles stock will be unsafe but I am saying it will be a constant problem. Right now I'm in the middle of repairing a 60+ year old Model 37 Ithaca 12ga pump shotgun with a butt stock design that is weak at best, where the pistol grip face is held against the reciever by a through bolt.
It's not worth finding a new or used butt stock for so I'm beefing up and repairing the mating surface with epoxy and letting it cure very hard.
The wood is compressed to the point the fibers are broken and the fellow that used to own it had taken off the butt plate and had been tightening it before ''Duck Season" every year for the past twenty or so to keep it shooting and hopefully prevent it from breaking, until he was finished.
It lasted, but it wasn't acceptable IMHO and a constant worry.
The cracks that were present are now properly glued, but still visible and the mating surface once again matches the receiver.
Is this stock as good as it was new, strength wise or worry wise??? Not IMHO but it's way better than it was when I got it and well within the strength and worry free parameters I look for in a hunting shotgun.
These rifles don't get better with shims. The epoxy is not "just a shim'' again IMHO. It fills completely and adheres to the wood, thereby strengthening it and when the stamped metal trigger guard is remounted and torqued down, distributes the force across a wider area, without worrying about the area being compressed again, especially if pillars are also added and the area on the other side has been epoxy bedded as well, keeping everything from moving even slightly during recoil.
Thanks for the tip... I think I would like to bed it eventually but this sounds like a good solution in the meantime so I can at least get out and shoot the rifle.
Thanks, that sounds like a great idea!
Agreed the epoxy bonds and bridges way better then a shim.
People tightening and tightening mechanical connections and not addressing structural issues is fairly common... just like cranking down on a leaky plumbing fitting is rarely a long term solution and usual does more damage.
I enjoy fixing and repairing things, it's shocking how well some "temproary" I don't have the right parts on hand make due with what you have type repairs last sometimes.... I have a buddy who is well known for fixing telemark bindings and mechanical mountain bike brakes with a shoelace and getting many more rides out of his half ass repair....
Agreed the epoxy bonds and bridges way better then a shim.
People tightening and tightening mechanical connections and not addressing structural issues is fairly common... just like cranking down on a leaky plumbing fitting is rarely a long term solution and usual does more damage.
I enjoy fixing and repairing things, it's shocking how well some "temproary" I don't have the right parts on hand make due with what you have type repairs last sometimes.... I have a buddy who is well known for fixing telemark bindings and mechanical mountain bike brakes with a shoelace and getting many more rides out of his half ass repair....
I fully agree with that. How often have we all seen "well that will hold it for now" repairs last for years without issues.
