Second Installment; The Stockset

[Dave Waits]

First, 95% of all USGI stocksets on Service-Grade Garands are unsuitable for a Match-Rifle anymore. Too much age, oil-soaking and wood Compression. Even with a full-blown NM bedding job, these stocksets will shoot loose in less than a season of Matches. In the past when these rifles didn't have grey hair, the stocksets were in alot better condition. As it stands now, the newest of these stocksets are over fifty years old, the overwhelming majority having sat covered in Cosmolene in a crate for most of their life. So, the USGI stockset has to go.

What I recommend is a Walnut, fully-inletted unfinished Stockset from DGR(Deans' Gun Restorations)www.dgr.com. These are either Wenig or Bishop-reconditioned Boyds' stocksets cut to the better WWII pattern. The big thing is, Dean hand-inlets each of these stocksets using a M1 Barreled-action as a pattern and, the inletting is NM-quality. These are a very tight fit allowing no movement of the receiver once locked up and, the entire bottom -end is clearenced for no contact with either the barrel or the Operating-Rod. The only mods needed are to clearence the front and rear handguards and the Op-Rod handle.

The trick with a NM Stockset is that there is no contact of the barrel anywhere except for three points; Where it connects with the receiver-shoulder, the Lower-Band and the Gas-Cylinder. This is as close to free-floating as one can get with a Garand.
How to do it?
First, the rear handguard. We're going to change the thickness and the length of the rear handguard so that all that touches the barrel is the handguard clip.You do this by,A.) sanding the front so that it fits fully into the lower-band without any of the tongue showing. Next, you lay it in the lower-band and on the barrel to make sure that you have a small space between the end of the handguard and the shoulder of the receiver. Just a hair more than the thickness of a business-card is all you need. I'll explain why later.

Next, we're going to put a thin layer of grease on the top of the barrel, and with the handguard clip on, install the rear-handguard and slide the lower-band into place. Now, gently take it back apart and look at the bottom of the rear handguard. you're going to sand it anywhere it made contact with the grease. Keep doing this until you see no grease on the bottom. Okay, take it back apart for now. Be careful with the rear handguard at this point, it's liable to be thin and easily broken.

The Front Handguard. We're going to open up the handguard and unitize it to the lower-band. First thing is to find a good,local woodshop. You don't want to try this yourself.Take the bare front handguard to them and tell them you want the barrel-channel(The hole the barrel goes through) to be opened up 1/8" from end to end. They'll use a long Reamer for this. When you get it back we're going to first sand down the rear tongue so that it fits fully inside the lower-band. Then, we're going to Epoxy it into the lower band and let it sit for two days to cure. When it's done, open up the hole in the front handguard ferrule to the same diameter they opened the barrel-channel up to, sand the nose tongue to fit fully inside the ferrule and epoxy it on. No, the Op-Rod liner is not making the trip. This is the reason for Rule #1 with a NM-Rifle; Never grab it by the front handguard. The liner is a source of rubbing for the Op-rod, you don't want this.

Last, lay the barreled action in the Buttstock, hold it in place with your thumb and work the Op-rod back and forth, watching the wood under the Op-rod handle and along the stock for rubbing. As we actually build the rifle, I'll show pictures of how to do all of this so there's no confusion. Anywhere there's rubbing you need to sand it down making sure you hold the correct angle.

Usually, the Stockset is the last thing involved with building a NM-Rifle but, alot of the work can be done in advance along with final sanding, staining and finishing the stockset. so, it makes sense to get the stockset started early, that way you don't get the rifle-jitters and rush through so you can go shoot it. See...I know you guys!