Stripped screw holes in stock

[Zacwward]

Greetings All,
I'm new here and building my first gun which is a Kibler SMR kit. I unknowingly damaged the screws that hold on the butt plates and because I didn't realize their threads were damaged I managed to strip two of the screw holes in the stock. Ive done a little bit of woodworking before and so I can think of probably about 4 ways to deal with this issue. But I'm really curious what would be considered the best method resulting in the easiest repair with the highest likelihood of success. I'd like to avoid completely filling the holes and redrilling them if possible.

Thanks!

[ScottH]

Drill out the stripped holes larger and plug with hardwood dowels and titebond wood glue and then carefully redrill for the appropriate size screws.

[rich pierce]

An emergency fix for screws that won’t be removed and re-installed is to insert a couple thin strips of hardwood, opposite rack other, and break them off so they are just in the threaded area of the hole. It’s a cob-job.

[Beaverman]

Another fix would be filling the holes with a mix of a GOOD epoxy and wood flour, then install the plate with a releasing agent such as Pam non stick food spray on it and the screws, allow to set up and then remove the plate ad screw, I have had good success with this method on stripped out holes in both cabinets and door hinges along with fixing an overly deep lock mortise on a friends Lyman kit

[TDM]

Drill out the stripped holes larger and plug with hardwood dowels and titebond wood glue and then carefully redrill for the appropriate size screws.

All good solutions above, but for a long term fix I agree with ScottH.

[Daryl]

Me 2 - fill with dowels.

[snapper]

I have or had an old rifle with lead in the stripped-out holes.  Seemed to work well.

Fleener

[sbowman]

I've glued in wooden toothpicks to good effect in a similar situation.

Steve

[smylee grouch]

It seems as though I always have a few short stubs of hickory ramrod laying around the work bench so that's what I use for such things.

[Eric Krewson]

We all drill off center holes and have to redo them, my record is 4 dowels in the same place on one of those nightmare English fowler butt plates.

The patches are hidden and a hickory dowel is much stronger than the stock wood.

My record for plugging the same hole, this is before I discovered centering drills.



Stripped TC tang screws, more dowels, the one to the rear has been stained to make it less obvious.

 

Fixing a crack and redrilling at a TC lock bolt hole. I stained all the dowels on this gun to match the stock wood and made them disappear.

[WKevinD]

try chopsticks glued in place, they fill a stripped woodscrew hole well and you get to have lunch ta boot.


Kevin