A disaster under the wood?

[browningautorifle]

Ken Davis has 40 years as a stock maker I did post a while ago on a stock he made from scatch out of I think pear wood for his might be a Lee speed or LE MKI not sure but it is a beautiful looking effort

I remember that too...very appealing.

I would replace the offending item. It's what would have been done in service after all and who's to say this isn't a replacement that's already on there.

Very true, and all this about it actually has the numbers present...who's to say that wasn't done by the armorers or someone since. You can do the exact same thing as the armorers, replace and hand stamp to match. They would have. Easier than trying to fix that mess.

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[Daan Kemp]

Should be a No 4 Mk 2 if manufactured in 1949. Trigger not fixed to the trigger guard but hung from the body.

You have two options: the easy one is to replace the stock; the difficult one is to try and fix it. The advantage of the second one is that you always have the option of replacing the stock if your fix doesn't. And the experience of what doesn't work.

I would fix the stock before shooting again.

[pisco]

that’s a nice repair job

[Brian Dick]

The earliest No.4Mk.2 rifles were produced in April 1949 if memory serves. Fazakerley built lots of No.4Mk.1 in 1949 also which is what the OP's rifle is.

[30Three]

Obviously if your new to rifle shooting you will probably take a while to become proficient. But this rifle when it's properly set up should be able to place those 25 shots within a 2" or 3" group at 100 yards.

[Sunray]

"...spray it with oven cleaner..." Oven cleaner is caustic and can chemically burn wood.
It looks like somebody refinished the rifle without bothering to remove the stock. Fixing it will depend on where in N. America you are.
"...safe for me to shoot..." The fore stock is cracked. That won't cause the thing to burst from shooting, but you might end up with wood bits in your hand.

[pisco]

i don’t want to be smart but i have cleaned a lot of stocks with oven cleaner and you wash them in water to clean up i have never had a problem with any of them after the clean up
i have had a couple of others say you can’t no one has ever proved anything
i read it in one of the brownells gunsmith kinks and have used the idea ever since
you only leave it on the wood for about 15 minutes then wash off and let dry
so if my idea is not right what is ,how does every body clean up there wood work

[RobD]

I've used oven cleaner once, on a very poor condition stock; it cleaned the stock OK, but it's a strong alkali and I found the wood behaved like litmus paper and went a strange colour [blue-grey, if I recall correctly] and so after I had washed it off I neutralised it with vinegar and thankfully it went back to a normal colour.
I now favour paint or varnish stripper - gets rid of surface gunk as well as de-greasing.
Also, for a finish personally I prefer Danish oil to linseed oil.

[mrclark303]

It all depends how bad it is, if it's a clean (black with grime and grease) in preparation for refinishing, I use 3M red scotchbrite, in conjunction with clean water. It's not aggressive, so it doesn't affect markings etc, but it effectively removes all the grime from the fibre of the woodwork.

When it's completely dry, I go over again with a dry scotchbrite, then use liberon spirit based colour, followed by a first coat of raw linseed oil cut 50% with turpentine, (gives great depth to the final finish) followed by neat raw linseed oil applications as required, i.e, until it stops soaking in.

If the woods really dry, or a NOS replacement, I put the stock in a plastic bag and keep applying for a week.

That's my approach anyway.

[splicenut]

Lionheart,
Yes, that's a mess. I sympathize, having been a starving college student with a bad shooting/hunting/backpacking/fishing habit. It took years of "therapy" and a regular paycheck to get me over that. (The starving student part, I mean.)
One question nobody has asked is: How does it shoot? What kind of groups are you getting, and with what ammo? While, in the long term, I agree that you will probably need to fit (or have fitted) a new forend, in the meantime, you may be able to get away with injecting some epoxy into the crack and clamping it together as a TEMPORARY fix. It IS broken, and you WILL have to do a more permanent repair, eventually.
I get the feeling that you don't shoot it that often, but that you'd like to. If you get acceptable accuracy with the quick fix, that may serve you for a while. It's not really a safety issue. If the accuracy is not good, then just put it up for now and save up for a replacement forend (They're getting pricier as we speak, so don't waste any time.) and either hone your woodworking skills (on scrap!) or save up for BD or another good LE smith to do the work.
Just my 2c.
Cheers!
Splice