I found myself in the market for a lightweight, general purpose hunting rifle. After some positive experiences with Winchester M70 Featherweights, I decided to build one into such a rifle. The donor action is a late 90’s Classic Stainless Featherweight chambered in .308 Winchester. I managed to find a used McMillan Edge stock with a blind magazine inlet and sporter barrel channel to house the action.
The first step was to cut the stock to my correct LOP, chip out the old bedding (acraglass) and begin bedding the barrel channel and recoil lug. I also chose to fill the checkering on the stock
All was well until I went to remove the action from the bedding. I had used some cut off action screws as locating pins to keep the action positioned properly in the stock while the bedding compound cured. While I remembered to wax the locating pins, i neglected to wax the inside of the pillars and didn’t think about the threads on the pins creating a mechanical lock with the inside of the pillar. Doh.
The cute little factory pillar decided to part ways with the lightweight edge filled McMillan.
Fortunately, I had a much more skookum Badger Ordnance pillar in the parts bin and set to work “inletting” the stock with the hand held Bridgeport.
I mixed up some Marine Tex with a handful of microballoons, installed the pillar and placed the action back in the stock for another attempt. When the time came to pull the action out I was left with...
Success! A nicely bedded recoil lug, solid pillar install and the magazine box actually ended up getting bedded in nicely too. A much needed redemption for the previous days negligence.
With the stock now back in a functional state, I turned to the cosmetics. I finished up the barrel channel reduction and free floated it to the tiny “shank” of the featherweight barrel. I also finished filling the checkering and the recessed area around the front action screw escutcheon.
With the body work complete, I hit the stock with a coat of woodland brown duracoat followed by matte black and snow grey specks.
After finishing the stock, I turned to the metalwork. The factory barrel was cut back to 20”, factory aluminum trigger guard sanded flat, NECG action screw heads ground flat, and everything refinished. I blasted the parts with 80 grit garnet, greased heavily with moly grease and buffed them out with 0000 steel wool. The factory trigger guard got the same treatment but I opted to leave the flats polished to a 400 grit finish.
I finished the rifle with an orange kick-eez “trap” recoil pad and a Leupold vx3-i 2.5-8x36 in talley lightweight mounts. The rifle is 6.66 pounds as pictured unloaded.
I’ll post up some detail shots of the finished rifle in the daylight. It’s a little gloomy out today. Thanks for looking, hope it inspires others to try doing some of their own work.
The first step was to cut the stock to my correct LOP, chip out the old bedding (acraglass) and begin bedding the barrel channel and recoil lug. I also chose to fill the checkering on the stock
All was well until I went to remove the action from the bedding. I had used some cut off action screws as locating pins to keep the action positioned properly in the stock while the bedding compound cured. While I remembered to wax the locating pins, i neglected to wax the inside of the pillars and didn’t think about the threads on the pins creating a mechanical lock with the inside of the pillar. Doh.
The cute little factory pillar decided to part ways with the lightweight edge filled McMillan.
Fortunately, I had a much more skookum Badger Ordnance pillar in the parts bin and set to work “inletting” the stock with the hand held Bridgeport.
I mixed up some Marine Tex with a handful of microballoons, installed the pillar and placed the action back in the stock for another attempt. When the time came to pull the action out I was left with...
Success! A nicely bedded recoil lug, solid pillar install and the magazine box actually ended up getting bedded in nicely too. A much needed redemption for the previous days negligence.
With the stock now back in a functional state, I turned to the cosmetics. I finished up the barrel channel reduction and free floated it to the tiny “shank” of the featherweight barrel. I also finished filling the checkering and the recessed area around the front action screw escutcheon.
With the body work complete, I hit the stock with a coat of woodland brown duracoat followed by matte black and snow grey specks.
After finishing the stock, I turned to the metalwork. The factory barrel was cut back to 20”, factory aluminum trigger guard sanded flat, NECG action screw heads ground flat, and everything refinished. I blasted the parts with 80 grit garnet, greased heavily with moly grease and buffed them out with 0000 steel wool. The factory trigger guard got the same treatment but I opted to leave the flats polished to a 400 grit finish.
I finished the rifle with an orange kick-eez “trap” recoil pad and a Leupold vx3-i 2.5-8x36 in talley lightweight mounts. The rifle is 6.66 pounds as pictured unloaded.
I’ll post up some detail shots of the finished rifle in the daylight. It’s a little gloomy out today. Thanks for looking, hope it inspires others to try doing some of their own work.
