Context:
Update: I have reached out to Boyds and they have agreed to refund me $100 for the inconvenience, which is more than enough to cover not only the cost of the flawed pillar bedding option, but also all the materials I needed to fix the issue and even make it greater and stronger than it would have ever been otherwise. The stock is now fixed and properly bedded. I understand that mistakes can be made by anyone. Boyd's willingness to stand behind their products and make it right without any hassle has impressed me. I would definitely buy from them again.
Let's start with a bit of back story. For over a year now, I have a whole bunch of bulk .223 ammunition and no longer have a rifle with which to shoot it because of the selfish decisions of some slimy politician. This has also left a hole in my safe since now I lack a reasonably accurate centerfire rifle that is cheap to feed and that I can use to practice shooting offhand and unsupported prone with.
This is why I decided to cut my losses and find myself a compact and light .223 bolt action rifle that took AR mags because I happened to have a whole bunch of those gathering dust as well. And so I did get myself a nice Ruger American Ranch. Great rifle especially for the price. Not target-grade accurate by any means but plenty enough for me to reliably hit a small gong at the 100 and 200 line if I do my part. Perfect for what I wanted. One problem however, the stock is plasticky and cheap and I don't like the grip angle. It is not vertical enough and it makes it uncomfortable to shoot prone. I also prefer my length of pull to be a little bit longer than average as well and this stock wasn't doing it.
This is when I started looking up for a replacement stock. I originally wanted a GRS stock as I remember seeing one in a shop and absolutely loved it. But they don't make an inlet for my particular rifle. And so I decided to go for the Boyds At-one stock, which is very similar in design and features. Fantastic looking stock. Alright, I ordered it. I wasn't looking for a very fancy setup. I wasn't building a benchrest rifle by any means. I was happy with sloppy. I figured I'd just drop my action in, see how well it shoots and maybe eventually do a quarter-assed bedding job further down the road if I ever felt like it.
The Stock:
Fast forward a few weeks later, I have the stock. On first impressions, it is a very nice looking and feeling stock. I also like the engineering solutions they have implemented throughout to make it modular and adjustable. The length of pull is still a tad short for me. It was OK when fully extended but it made the stock a bit wobbly so I decided to 3D print myself a spacer for it.
And now for the less pleasant surprises. The inletting is bad. I don't mean that some cleanup and minor fitting is required, as I was originally expecting. I mean I can't even fit the rifle in. A particularity of my rifle is that there are two action blocks that fit in the stock and in two slots in the receiver. The distance between them is off by a millimeter so they don't line up with the slots. The action also appears to be slightly rotated inside the stock so the action holes don't line up. I have yet to fully investigate the cause of this.
Then, there is the pillar bedding. Because I wasn't really interested in going through the effort of bedding a rifle I didn't want more than 2.5 MOA out of, I decided to pay for their pillar bedding option. I knew it wasn't going to be great but it would at least reduce the risk of the stock cracking. This is when I saw the poor excuse of a pillar bedding that was for the front action screw. I had to knock it out. Look at this sad affair:
It wasn't even cut straight. And as I found out later it is too short. I knocked the rear one as well, that one was luckily better cut and fitted.
And now for the final problem that I have found so far: The supplied front action screw is too short. Look how far the action screw sticks out in the stock when pushed fully in:
If I hadn't known any better I would have fired the rifle with only one thread of action screw secured, which would have likely at least ruined my receiver. At first I thought that maybe the inletting was the cause, but then to verify this I assembled the rifle with the bottom metal without the stock and this is what I saw:
The screw is definitely short. The only way that screw reaches the receiver is if I press down enough to cause the bottom metal to flex.
At that point I resigned. Quarter-assing it isn't going to do. The inletting is too bad. I'll have to carve it out and do an at least half-assed bedding job if I am to safely shoot this rifle inside of that stock. I'm also not interested in returning the stock to Boyds because A: I'll have to pay international shipping again which is exorbitant, B: I'll be back to square one with no stock minus over a hundred dollars of shipping fees and other alternatives are even more expensive, and C: I have had experience with bedding rifles before (although this would be my first magazine-fed one) and I know I can turn this into something really nice, I'll just have to put effort in.
The work (so far):
And so today I started by making my own pillars out of threaded lamp wire conduits from the hardware store. It is by far a cheaper solution that the travesty that Boyds did and it fits far better. I have assembled the rifle with the bottom metal and recoil lugs to determine the pillar height required to achieve the best bottom metal placement for reliable feeding. Luckily the feed mechanism on this rifle is extremely forgiving. So I have made my pillar heights so the bottom metal is parallel to the receiver and as high up into it as possible without touching it and without any flexion forces being applied to the bottom metal like it originally was. Here is a picture of the result with the original front pillar put aside so you can see how far off Boyds really were with their pillar heigh. (The bolt and washers are a temporary fix so I can at least work on the rifle until I receive a properly sized action screw that I ordered on Amazon)
I have also enlarged the pillar holes in the stock in preparation for a proper bedding job. The bedding blocks also had some casting flash on them that I stoned off.
Lessons learned so far:
- Boyds stocks are nice, but don't order one expecting a simple drop-in even if you don't care that much about accuracy. Expect to have to do a full bedding job to make it fit properly.
- DO NOT take their pillar bedding option. You absolutely do NOT get what you pay for. It is an absolute ripoff.
- Quarter assing it doesn't work. You need at least half an ass.
This is as far as I have come today. It is now past supper time. More will come as I continue my work. Stay tuned.
Update: I have reached out to Boyds and they have agreed to refund me $100 for the inconvenience, which is more than enough to cover not only the cost of the flawed pillar bedding option, but also all the materials I needed to fix the issue and even make it greater and stronger than it would have ever been otherwise. The stock is now fixed and properly bedded. I understand that mistakes can be made by anyone. Boyd's willingness to stand behind their products and make it right without any hassle has impressed me. I would definitely buy from them again.
Let's start with a bit of back story. For over a year now, I have a whole bunch of bulk .223 ammunition and no longer have a rifle with which to shoot it because of the selfish decisions of some slimy politician. This has also left a hole in my safe since now I lack a reasonably accurate centerfire rifle that is cheap to feed and that I can use to practice shooting offhand and unsupported prone with.
This is why I decided to cut my losses and find myself a compact and light .223 bolt action rifle that took AR mags because I happened to have a whole bunch of those gathering dust as well. And so I did get myself a nice Ruger American Ranch. Great rifle especially for the price. Not target-grade accurate by any means but plenty enough for me to reliably hit a small gong at the 100 and 200 line if I do my part. Perfect for what I wanted. One problem however, the stock is plasticky and cheap and I don't like the grip angle. It is not vertical enough and it makes it uncomfortable to shoot prone. I also prefer my length of pull to be a little bit longer than average as well and this stock wasn't doing it.
This is when I started looking up for a replacement stock. I originally wanted a GRS stock as I remember seeing one in a shop and absolutely loved it. But they don't make an inlet for my particular rifle. And so I decided to go for the Boyds At-one stock, which is very similar in design and features. Fantastic looking stock. Alright, I ordered it. I wasn't looking for a very fancy setup. I wasn't building a benchrest rifle by any means. I was happy with sloppy. I figured I'd just drop my action in, see how well it shoots and maybe eventually do a quarter-assed bedding job further down the road if I ever felt like it.
The Stock:
Fast forward a few weeks later, I have the stock. On first impressions, it is a very nice looking and feeling stock. I also like the engineering solutions they have implemented throughout to make it modular and adjustable. The length of pull is still a tad short for me. It was OK when fully extended but it made the stock a bit wobbly so I decided to 3D print myself a spacer for it.
And now for the less pleasant surprises. The inletting is bad. I don't mean that some cleanup and minor fitting is required, as I was originally expecting. I mean I can't even fit the rifle in. A particularity of my rifle is that there are two action blocks that fit in the stock and in two slots in the receiver. The distance between them is off by a millimeter so they don't line up with the slots. The action also appears to be slightly rotated inside the stock so the action holes don't line up. I have yet to fully investigate the cause of this.
Then, there is the pillar bedding. Because I wasn't really interested in going through the effort of bedding a rifle I didn't want more than 2.5 MOA out of, I decided to pay for their pillar bedding option. I knew it wasn't going to be great but it would at least reduce the risk of the stock cracking. This is when I saw the poor excuse of a pillar bedding that was for the front action screw. I had to knock it out. Look at this sad affair:
It wasn't even cut straight. And as I found out later it is too short. I knocked the rear one as well, that one was luckily better cut and fitted.
And now for the final problem that I have found so far: The supplied front action screw is too short. Look how far the action screw sticks out in the stock when pushed fully in:
If I hadn't known any better I would have fired the rifle with only one thread of action screw secured, which would have likely at least ruined my receiver. At first I thought that maybe the inletting was the cause, but then to verify this I assembled the rifle with the bottom metal without the stock and this is what I saw:
The screw is definitely short. The only way that screw reaches the receiver is if I press down enough to cause the bottom metal to flex.
At that point I resigned. Quarter-assing it isn't going to do. The inletting is too bad. I'll have to carve it out and do an at least half-assed bedding job if I am to safely shoot this rifle inside of that stock. I'm also not interested in returning the stock to Boyds because A: I'll have to pay international shipping again which is exorbitant, B: I'll be back to square one with no stock minus over a hundred dollars of shipping fees and other alternatives are even more expensive, and C: I have had experience with bedding rifles before (although this would be my first magazine-fed one) and I know I can turn this into something really nice, I'll just have to put effort in.
The work (so far):
And so today I started by making my own pillars out of threaded lamp wire conduits from the hardware store. It is by far a cheaper solution that the travesty that Boyds did and it fits far better. I have assembled the rifle with the bottom metal and recoil lugs to determine the pillar height required to achieve the best bottom metal placement for reliable feeding. Luckily the feed mechanism on this rifle is extremely forgiving. So I have made my pillar heights so the bottom metal is parallel to the receiver and as high up into it as possible without touching it and without any flexion forces being applied to the bottom metal like it originally was. Here is a picture of the result with the original front pillar put aside so you can see how far off Boyds really were with their pillar heigh. (The bolt and washers are a temporary fix so I can at least work on the rifle until I receive a properly sized action screw that I ordered on Amazon)
I have also enlarged the pillar holes in the stock in preparation for a proper bedding job. The bedding blocks also had some casting flash on them that I stoned off.
Lessons learned so far:
- Boyds stocks are nice, but don't order one expecting a simple drop-in even if you don't care that much about accuracy. Expect to have to do a full bedding job to make it fit properly.
- DO NOT take their pillar bedding option. You absolutely do NOT get what you pay for. It is an absolute ripoff.
- Quarter assing it doesn't work. You need at least half an ass.
This is as far as I have come today. It is now past supper time. More will come as I continue my work. Stay tuned.
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