Minelli stock review and fitting

[JT5150]

This is a great writeup and I wish it was around when I was refitting the Minelli that came on a 2013 Rock Ridge 03A4 clone (“new”, unused in the box) in January of this year. Would have saved me alot of time just having to go through and figure this stuff out by trial and error. I’ve fit a dozen Garand stocks and there is quite a bit of information on those (in fact there are no aftermarket Garand stocks that I find “good”, even Minellis fit too loose and there is no CMP legal way to fix it)…but there is surprisingly not much detailed info out there for 1903 fitting, at least not that I’ve been able to find.

One thing that caused an issue is that I found that the end of the barrel channel in mine was warped a little to one side, and the whole action was originally installed crooked as well; and then the stamped type trigger housing was VERY tightly installed so that the bedding surfaces were cracked and deeply cut-in so that even a milled trigger housing wasn’t going to do much good. None of the fitting shown here was done. The tang bed was crushed and fore end pressure was made minimal. The magazine and receiver have no gap. I would heavily assume more than 65 in/lbs was applied.

Do you think these Minellis are kind of on the soft side? Especially compared to USGI? I may just start over with another that I can properly fit from
the start with a more gentle milled trigger housing but I don’t know if it’s worth it if it will just crush again. I could just file down the front bed, magazine box, and chase out any other contact to get a good gap. Sometimes I relate tuning these old rifles with components that are no longer really made correctly to the old art of tuning a carburetor to run right. Can just be a pain and a money pit but I love it.

And Semper Fi, I left the USMC this Memorial Day.