Thoughts on Reinforcing a Wrist on a rifle

[Birddog6]

What are your thoughts on reinforcing a wrist on a rifle, that has cross grain & possibly weak.

A:  Drill from tang thru wrist and into stock & glue in a 3/8" or 1/2" Hickory or Oak Dowel Rod.

B:  Same as above but glue in a 3/8" or 1/2" Carbon Fibre rod.

C:  Same as above but glue in a piece of 3/8" steel allthread.

No guessing please.  I want to hear from guys that HAVE done this.  Any of the 3 will prob work,
but what DID work for you & your preference ?

Thanks

Keith

[smylee grouch]

I have done two with 1\4 inch threaded rod and it worked well and has held up well for over 30 years now.

[smallpatch]

What Smylee said.

[Old and Grumpy]

I have used "A" when it looked like a crack might happen. And to stop a crack that won't clamp shut under a butt or toe plate. If you have enough space I would use 2 thinner dowels instead of one fat one. Sand the dowel so it slips in and out with no force. I use a razor knife to cut a small slot up the side of the dowel to let extra glue out. More on this latter.

[HSmithTX]

The absolute best I have ever seen is where the guy slotted the wrist under the trigger guard and glued in a hard straight grain piece of wood nearly the depth of the wrist. Basically from tang into the stock.  I don't remember if it was David Rase or Crisali?  I think it was one of those two.  Perfection in execution and result in my opinion. 

[Cory Joe Stewart]

I have done this with threaded rod.  I did it to a club butt that had a lot of drop in the wrist.  A dowel would work, but you may find it difficult to drive the dowel in all the way because glue with swell the dowel making it hard to drive in. 

Also, be mindful of clearance of the trigger and tang bolt. 

Cory Joe

[yip]

 A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS

[smylee grouch]

On the two that I did,after a 1\4 inch hole was drilled avoiding the tang bolt I cut threaded Rod to length and cut a screwdriver slot in one end, use release agent where needed and let Brownells  bedding run into hole then screwed rod in slow to let excess ozz out

[MuskratMike]

Then when you get it all done do a period correct brass or copper reinforcing cover like this. Looks great covers the repair if it can be seen and is super cool.

[whetrock]

Keith,
In reading the top post again, am I correct that this rifle is not broken?

[Herb]

I have done at least six like Smylee Grouch does it.  I also have used two 1/4" threaded all-rods through the wrist, one above the other.  And I have repaired broken off guitar heads about the same way.

[LynnC]

3/8” all thread.

Guy broke his rifle thru the wrist and glued it back together. Scared it wouldn't hold he took it to my dads machine shop to reinforce it. This was back in the late 80s.  I ran into the owner a while back and he was still so pleased his hunting rifle is still holding up. Well over 35 yrs.

[Scota4570]

Somebody here did it in a really slick way.  A slot was milled in the wrist under the trigger guard.  A slab of wood with strong grain orientation was inserted in the slot and glued in place with glass bedding compound.  The insert was then inletted as the stock was before for the trigger guard.  I'd do that. 

The best solution is not not make a stock with poor grain layout in the first place.

[smylee grouch]

I think DaveC posted his great idea like Scotta related . Might be a tutorial???

[whetrock]

The most recent discussion of the spline technique may have been this one, from March, 2023.
Here's the thread. Scroll up or down to see davec2's posts.

https://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=75845.msg754818#msg754818

[HSmithTX]

Yes, that is the post I was thinking of. 

[Birddog6]

It is Not broken yet, but it will be when I am done with it. 

I repaired one years ago with a piece of Allthread rod & it worked OK.  I don't have
a way to drill it "Dead On Straight" other than by hand.
Prob be OK, but thought maybe someone had a better way.
I actually like the wooden dowel, as if you had to put a wood screw in it you could.
Prob go with the steel rod again tho.

thanks all

Keith

PS: Should have known DaveC had a good way, that guy can do anything.ote]

[kutter]

I've fixed a lot of cartridge gun stocks with dowel rods down through the wrist from the back of the action inlet.
Both one piece rifle type stocks and butt stocks from shotguns and pump and semi auto types.

I usually drill a hole of sufficient over size to allow the dowel rod to slide easily down into the hole. Trying for a tight fit doesn't make the stock any stronger as long as you are using a good epoxy glue along with it. So loosen up the tollerance and give yourself some room to reallaign the two pieces even if they are not completely broken in half yet.

I don't use wooden dowels as they are not very strong in themselves.
All-thread steel or brass is but when using long lengths, figure the added weight. It can be quite a lot to the finished stock when ll done.
Aluminum works well. Light weight and you can up the dia for strength. Given that the rod is completely covered in the epoxy when inserted and seated in there, there's no concern of it getting an oxide coating on it and loosening from the epoxy (something some have told me would happen and the joint would fail)

I've never had one fail and I've used Steel, Brass and Aluminum.
Heavy hitter calibers down to .22's. Sometimes just for 'stretching' a forend in restoring a sporterized Military. Those are usually 4 or 5" depth into each piece of wood to be joined of #8 all thread . 2 or 3  does it along with good solid clamping and allaignment.

[Bill Raby]

I drilled a hole from breech all the way through to butt plate. Put in a 5/8 inch steel rod. This was on a 4 bore with very thick wrist.

[Habu]

(Hey--Herb's back!  Hope you're doing well!)

Working on a kit a couple years ago--after the third time the wrist of the stock cracked before I even got the rifle finished--I knew I was going to have to do something.  I considered putting a rod in the wrist, but the stock was cracking kinda-vertically but diagonal across the wrist.  I also thought about just putting threaded pins side-to-side through the wrist.  I decided to go with the splint technique as shown by Dave C.

I glued the stock back together--again--using Titebond II IIRC, then slotted the wrist from about the front lock screw back to under the nose of the comb.  I took some hard maple and split out a blank, squared it up, and fit it to the slot in the wrist.  I glued it in with Titebond II, then spent a weekend trimming it down, doing some re-inletting, re-drilling for the ramrod, etc.  Hardest parts were splitting a nice maple turning blank I'd been saving for a special project, and having to make a new ramrod drill the correct diameter.

In the past I've used the rod method, particularly on some heavy-recoiling rifles.  I suspect wood is a "better" choice than metal, but I'm not sure it really matters.  As a teenager I used Redi-rod and epoxy to reinforce the wrist on a (please pardon the expression) .505 Gibbs.  When I saw the rifle about 35 years later it had cracked.  I don't think that was directly due to the recoil but to the wood flexing around the rod in recoil.  I used a split-hickory dowel to reinforce the wrist of a .58 about the same time, and it has held up well (don't recall what glue I used that time). 

[bob in the woods]

I'm partial to using wood.  My cherry stocked 10 bore N. E. Fowler developed a crack in the wrist. I split out an ash blank and fashioned a dowel [ 3/ 8 th in roughly ] put in a couple of wee grooves length wise and glued it with Titebond 3.   It has held up wonderfully for years, even with some stout loads.

[Old and Grumpy]

I think still on topic. I have a good old shotgun with the stalk that bolts on from under the but plate. Wrist started to crack . I got a 1/2" thin wall copper pipe connector . The one that you solider. The smooth one with no rib. I sanded the bolt hole so the fitting would slide in with no pressure. Then used a lot of epoxy to glue it in . This makes a inside splint. All good.

[alacran]

I have used the method that Smiley describes on several rifles. Only difference is that I used 1/4 inch stainless all-thread and bored a 5/16 hole. the epoxy I used is the same used to epoxy golf club heads to the shafts. The first one I did was for a friend's rifle that cracked at the wrist. All the other ones I have done have been to prevent the wrist from cracking in the first place.

[davec2]

This is a repeat from an old post of mine.  If you feel the need to beef up the wrist, I think this is easier and just as effective as steel rods or wood dowels:
***************************
A rifle I was building had a grain direction through the wrist that looked like a potential problem.  Every time I looked at the unfinished rifle as I passed by the bench, the grain run out started to bother me.  So rather than wait until the wrist broke one day and then try to fix it, I thought I would be pro-active and fix it before it broke.

I routed out a deep groove 3/8 inch wide and 1.25 inches tall through the entire wrist area excavating the existing inletting for the trigger, trigger plate, and rear of the trigger guard.



I then cut a straight grain splint out of a scrap of the same stock blank and cut some narrow grooves in it to allow me to squeeze the epoxy out around the splint and get it fully seated in its groove. (I have also used a hickory splint with great success).



One last full check fit before the epoxy was mixed.



Splint epoxied in place....



After a day of curing, the trigger, trigger plate and rear of the trigger guard were re-inletted back where they came from.



If the stock breaks at the wrist after this, I'll make a new stock.

[Birddog6]

I wish I had a milling machine to do that.  Awesome job.

Keith