Recently I purchased a nice field grade Winchester from the North Store. It is a Springfield 66 rebuild and came dressed in a nifty “non-match” glass bedded stock.
While it locks up nice and is very nicely crafted it is not legal for JCG matches and, I am determined to shoot its nice LMR barrel in competition. So, I decided to swap the stock with an unfinished stock from Dupage.
First thing I did was give it a coat of Raw linseed, inside and out. It comes with all the metal parts however they were not installed. Then I installed the stock ferrule which was relatively easy. I did not have to remove any wood to get it to fit so I just tapped it on with a hammer and a piece of scrap wood.
Completing the front handguard was a little more difficult. The hand guard spacer that came with the set was giving me some trouble so, I took one from an extra handgaurd I had. I carefully tapped this in using a socket wrench extension and a hammer. Then I tapped the tabs of the spacer down into the front handgaurd ferrule with a punch. It takes 3 or 4 hands to do this and you’ll need to block the back (or bottom) of the spacer with something while bending the tabs on the front down or you’ll just push the spacer out. I just laid an extra punch on my workbench and placed it under the spacer. To get the front handguard to fit in the upper band I did need to file the “lips” carefully so it was able to move freely.
While the rifle did “drop in” I needed to do some fitting. Most of the work was sanding the area around the operating rod. It was dragging a bit mostly on the top of the area circled below. This too a fair amount of sanding and checking.
Then I rounded the sharp corners in channel towards front of the stock so the wood did not contact the barrel, this was fairly simple. If the barrel contacts the stock here, this will put upward pressure on the barrel and mess with your point of impact.
The rear handguard came properly shortened so that it left a little gap between the wood and the receiver. I sanded out the inside a bit so it did not touch the barrel.
I would highly recommend using a “badger ordnance” pliers to remove the rear hand guard retaining band. Otherwise it is very easy to break the rear handguard.
I also sanded the bottom of the rear hand guard and the top of the stock so they did not touch.
While I had the gas tube off I peened the barrel just to keep the front sight nice and tight. Unlike every other Garand I have this one came with a properly timed gas lock. I think this really speaks to the care taken with these 1960’s rebuilds. I did have to break down and buy a gas lock wrench as it was on very tight. This one came from amazon and did a nice job.
Check out Gus Fisher’s forum on M14forum.com he is very knowledgeable in proper stock fit I printed out several of his threads while working on this.
I can’t give you a good range report just yet as I ran out of ammo at the range (I know) I’m hoping to get her out in the next few days. If all goes well I may take this rifle to Camp Perry in a few months.
