With few exceptions, throughout the ‘Career’ of a Target Rifle Shooter the rifle stock issue will need to be addressed.  I thought I found a solution in the late 90’s when I switched to a metal stock, then to a more refined metal stock.  Unfortunately, the story did not end there.

It was in 2019.  I was happily training for the Imperial Meeting with my metal stocked Barnard.  The rifle was shooting great at 1,000 yards with hand loaded ammunition. I was keen to improve my standing in the Grand from the year before. I had some mixed results in the Spring matches, performing well at times but lacking consistency.  Overall I felt good and was enjoying myself.  The rifle was shooting where I pointed it.  

It was a week before the Imperial.  I had booked range time on Century, trying to refine elevations so that I could record them as starting points in my new ‘book’.  I was organized, so I thought.  After all of the tough lessons learned throughout the years, I thought I would focus on reducing the list of things that could go wrong during the meeting.  Shooting at different ranges over a series of days revealed that I was no longer grouping anywhere close to where I was earlier in the year.  Was it my eyes?  Was it a weight loss/jacket issue?  Trigger?  No, it was the barrel.  

After a thorough cleaning I ran a borescope  down the barrel.  At that time, I have owned a borescope for many years, but seldom use it.  Remember the days when people were actually telling others not to use a borescope saying something like ‘if you saw the state of your barrel, you would lose faith in your rifle and not shoot well’.   The initial inspection revealed a dark ‘patch’ 4 inches back from the muzzle.  No problem I thought.  A bit of brushing and a little JB.  How hard could it be?  After much scrubbing, I put a dry clean patch through the barrel and saw the ‘flakes’.  Tiny flakes of stainless steel.  I sighed, as the last time I encountered this condition it indicated a ‘failure’.  Out with the borescope again.  Where the dark patch was there was now a crater.  No amount of copper fouling would ever begin to fill in this pothole.  I imagined a bullet passing over this area had having its jacket ripped to shreds along the way.  Figures.  A week before the Imperial the barrel on my #1 gun died.  There was no way a smith could do a barrel and get it proofed in time.

Time to switch to the #2.  Only one problem.  The #1 had the cool metal stock.  The #2 had my old wooden stock from the 90’s, made by a ‘craftsman’ who earned an honest living by building and installing custom solid wood kitchen units.  He just happened to be an ex-Olympic small-bore shooter with a lot of great stories about former Olympic events.  He talked about shooting thousands of rounds per week while training.  He talked about how he had a stash of barrels set aside for him at the Anschutz factory.  He shot TR in Canada and the High Power in the US.  He had an extremely healthy outlook on life and a nice sense of humour.  He had ideas.  He was one of the early evaluators of the 223 Remington Cartridge in TR.  He built a 220 Swift to compete in American High Power Matches.  He designed rifle stocks based on his experience.  

He built my first stock when I started shooting TR.  It didn’t fit and after a year of struggling with it, one night after a few shots of silver tequila I took it out to the shop and went at it with 80 grit paper and a disc sander until it was perfect.  It became the best stock I ever had.  I narrowed the fore end to fit my gloved hand.  I put a scallop in the cheek piece that felt perfect.  It was humbly made from birch ply.  It was heavy, and had crude aluminium hardware, but it fit.  I put the tools away and finished the tequila.  The next time I took the stock to the range, the stock-maker said ‘What have you done to my stock!’.  I replied ‘I fixed it, and it is my stock, not yours’.

I liked my modified stock so much that I approached the stock maker and begged him to make another one.  Just like the one I had.  ‘Sure’, he replied.  Months later I made the journey to pick up my new stock.  I was excited.  My old stock, but with nice laminate made from cherry and maple (scraps from kitchen cabinet stock I presume).  I arrived at his house after a 5 hour journey that included 1 1/2 hours on the water.  I drove up to his house, jumped out of car and sprinted to his door.  I rang the bell.  After what seemed like an eternity, he opened the door and invited me in.  He showed me the new stock.  I was horrified.  It was all wrong.  The wood was very nice, but the shape was wrong.  I told him that it was ‘different’.  He agreed.  I reminded him that he was supposed to duplicate my old stock.  He insisted that the ‘new’ one incorporated his ‘latest’ ideas and thoughts on improving TR stock design.  Ideas such as bedding the rifle with the barrel at 5 degrees rather than parallel to the stock to keep the muzzle down during recoil.  A semi pistol grip.  A place to rest my thumb.  Why did I want another ‘old’ one when the ‘new’ and improved one was ‘better’.

I reluctantly took the stock home and while on the boat I decided that I would never to through this process again.  I decided to switch pursue metal stocks.  Not because I liked them, but instead my motivation was the dislike of the stock making process and the apparent requirement to go through the ‘learning curve’ to shoot with a new stock for each rifle.

I shot with the stock for a couple of years while people were trying to talk me out of switching to a metal stock. I had some success and some good shoots with it. I switched to an early version of a popular British metal stock.  I really liked it and got on well with it, the only downside being the weight.  I liked it so much that I purchased a more refined version when it was released.  The new version was lighter and more ergonomically designed.  My metal stock was set up with a V-Block to allow me to drop in any Barnard barrelled action I wanted to.  I had a TR set up and an MR set up.  This was intended to allow me to shoot both disciplines when I travelled to the UK from Canada.  All of the negative things people told me about metal stocks were untrue.  Quick to adjust, quick to reset.  I never looked back.  Until 2019 when the barrel on the #1 gun packed it in.  You see, the problem was that the #2 gun with the wooden stock had an RPA action, and not the Barnard action as the #1 gun.  I would have to shoot the old ‘stock’.  It brought back all of the memories; good and bad.

I was surprised by how different it was to shoot wood and metal stocked rifles.  The #2 gun with the wooden stock that I had not shot seriously for years just felt great when I picked it up.  It was a pleasure to look at.  It pointed naturally at the target.  The cheekpiece was smooth and nice.  The shape of the fore end was really nice.  It was balanced.  Just right.  Not too flat, not too wide.  It  had curves in the right places instead of flat bits that made machining operations simpler.

After a bit of sanding, I got the cheekpiece to fit.  I had gained 2 stone since I really had to shoot this rifle seriously.  I shot the entire Imperial Meeting with the wooden stocked rifle.  My scores weren’t great, but I really enjoyed shooting.  The stock felt good.  I preferred the ‘feel’ of the wood stock to that of the metal stock. I experienced less fatigue as the rifle was lighter than my #1 gun. 

Now what?  I was right back where I started, or was I actually in a worse place?  I liked my stock, but what about a #2 gun?  I think having a #2 is wise if you are planning to tour or even if you want to hedge your bets in a long match like the Imperial Meeting.  I don’t think that with the current legislation it is easy to borrow a spare gun from another shooter in the UK.  I suppose you could ‘rent’ one from a club if you were in a jam, such as your barrel failing the week before the Imperial as was my case.  I needed to standardize all of my TR Stocks.  How?