Modified my Tikka stock

[mddat]

With lots of time on my hands this summer recovering from injury I decided to mess around and modify a tikka factory stock I’ve had laying around for a while. I’ve seen a bunch of the DIY stock build threads and figured I’d give it a go and see if I could accomplish this with the info found in those threads. Only stuff I purchased was a cheap carbon fibre kit from amazon, some peel ply and some spray paint, all other materials I had laying around the garage already and wanted to keep this project cheap as possible. The goal was to give the stock a negative comb, slightly flatten out the toe line, as well as shorten the fore end. I’ve never done any sort of work with carbon fibre or altering a stock so it was all new to me and figured this would be a fun learning project incase I feel up to building a complete stock one day.



First I lopped off a few inches of the fore end and used some JB weld marine putty to cap the end.
Then I cut apart the butt end with a hacksaw and Dremel


Next I used some JB quick weld to attach things back together and filled with spray foam


Then put a bit of JB plastic weld on the bottom cause I ran out of the normal stuff.

I then sanded and smoothed everything out as best I could and got to the carbon fibre. Decided to just lay a half layer over the cut out and foam, figured doing a small part would be easier to start and see how it goes. I mixed up some resin and brushed it on, let it tack up a bit, then laid down the carbon. Wetted it out and covered in peel ply and wrapped with electrical tape. Waited 24hrs and removed the tape and peel ply, turned out ok, I sanded it down and prepared for the next full layer.

 

[mddat]

Cleaned everything up and followed the same steps as last time, definitely a bit harder doing a full wrap, especially trying to get a clean looking joint, wasn’t really able to but didn’t really care because I know I’m painting it.
Again waited 24 hours then removed tape, I was a little light on resin in a few spots but this is how it turned out
Cleaned up and sanded everything
On the third layer I overlapped the tape more and pulled at bit tighter to get more compression which I think helped. After the last layer I mixed up some resin one more time and did a top coat, more so just to see how it would turn out than anything else.

Here is a picture for comparison of factory stock vs changes I made


Next I shaped and sanded the fore end and gave the whole stock a sand with 320 grit sand paper. Wiped everything clean and sprayed a couple of light coats of adhesion promoter, then primed it with Rust-Oleum primer. Let it cure for a week then hit it with some Rust-Oleum multicoloured textured paint and some clear coat.

And here is the final product


It’s sitting in a tikka Superlite in 6.5 creedmoor



I picked up a .243 take off barrel that I’ll be chopping to 18” and installing on this one for a nice short little package for a truck gun, but that will wait till after hunting season. I definitely made lots of mistakes but learned a ton. I’m glad I started out with a small project and all in all I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. I might try vacuuming bagging the next project but still undecided. I’ve already ordered some better materials and will be doing a complete build for the next one.

 

[Sierra Hunter]

Well done, looks exceptional. Dibs on first in line if you decide to make a few $$

 

[AZ_Hunter]

Looks good. Nice job. Just curious, did the stock gain weight?

 

[mddat]

Looks good. Nice job. Just curious, did the stock gain weight?

It lost 1.4 ounces, the marine weld putty I used on the front cap is pretty heavy stuff