Fancy wood stocks may be admired on custom rifles that are more for show than for use, but for shooting comfort and dependable accuracy in all weathers Hogue’s overmolded stocks are better.
IT’S ONLY DURING the last two decades that the wood stocks on factory bolt-action hunting rifles have come to be regarded as “disposable” furniture. Today there’s any number of aftermarket gunstocks available to replace your old sporter stock that’s been scratched,
dented and may even have warped through being carried afield in all weathers. Whatever they’re called – retrofit, “drop-in” or just plain old replacement stock, these completely finished synthetic stocks can give your favourite working musket a new lease on life.
Today, the majority of factory rifles offer a choice of wood or synthetic stock, but it hasn’t always been like that and there’s thousands of old factory rifles out there that are simply crying out to be restocked and given a face-lift.
There can be no argument that the stock determines the cosmetic appeal of any rifle. Take the most modern barreled action available and drop it into a stock that’s poorly designed or badly proportioned, and you’ve got a rifle that not only looks ugly, but is not properly balanced and slow to mount and align. On the other hand, take an unglamorous barreled action like a military Mauser 98 or an old Remington Model 788, 721-722 or early Savage 110, attach a good-looking stock to it and not only is the appearance of the gun transformed, but the gun “feels”entirely different.
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