Somehow this rifle found its way home with me the other day. It is still in its factory plastic stock but the previous owner painted it black with a paint that obviously was never intended to be used on plastic. The paint is still tacky and it has been home with me for over a week and he supposedly painted it over 3 months ago. It looks like he used a Sharpie marker to cover a couple of scratches in the finish.
He also had a thumbhole Boyd's stock in gray laminate that he tried to finish...operative word here is "tried". It has some clear varnish/shellac/unknown on it. The outside of the stock is still very rough and needs a lot of sanding. He told me that he had put the action in the stock after he got it done but that it was in a bind and wouldn't cycle the action.
After I got to looking at it, I saw that he had drilled a hole in front of the forward action hole drilled by the factory. It is in forward edge of the bottom of the recess put there by the factory. A little creative use of filler and a little work with a Dremel tool should be able to straighten that out. I have read posts about the difference in action length screws and I think that Boyds may have either sent him the wrong one or he told them the wrong information.
The scope is Simmons Pro 50 2.5x10 that was mounted in some Walmart rings that have two straps on each ring that hold the scope in place. The scope is fairly short-bodied and there is a ridge manufactured in the body of it just in front of the variable-power ring. As a result, it wouldn't fit quite right so it was sitting kind of awkwardly on the rear ring. I'm not sure the rifle would have been able to shoot consistently.
Anyway, I agree with the view that these plastic stocks are pretty flimsy and saw where some guys were bedding aluminum bars in the forearm to make it more rigid. Has any tried the carbon fiber 1/4" x 1/4" sticks that are used in model airplane wings for the same purpose?
Can you fill the butt up with something such as spray in foam to take the hollow sound out of it?
Today, I am going to do something with the plastic stock....I don't think that I am going to use that other Boyd's stock....just not much of a thumbhole-stock fan.
I am pretty impressed with the metal look and the trigger is really not that bad. It is actually a lot lower pull than the Winchester that I bought a little while ago.
Definitely worth some investment in time and effort on my part.
