Jack,

That really is a beautiful stock and I hope that you can repair it.

While I am no expert, I have done some stock repairs with varying degrees of success. I’ll add that I measure success by how invisible the repair is.

If the broken piece can be tightly fitted to the stock with a minimal gap, the epoxy solution will likely give good results. However, if there’s a substantial gap, I don’t think epoxy is your best bet, it will always look like some sort of plastic insert. The reflectivity of epoxy just doesn’t match the reflectivity of wood.

If you cannot close the gap, a solution may be to glue the front where it was recently broken apart, and then reinforce the rear by inletting a vertical piece of wood under the butt plate as reinforcement. This would be followed up by filling the gap.

Of course, before doing anything, the joint needs to be cleaned of oil with acetone.  For the filler, sawdust mixed with glue, will probably result in a less visible repair than epoxy. Another option is to use a hand plane to create long slivers of matching wood that could be inserted into the gap, followed by sawdust as needed.

If a piece of wood used under the butt plate, the fill won’t be critical for strength, the glue used would simply be to hold the filler material in place. Thin superglue, wood glue, or hide glue would probably all work.

If you want to play with the options, saw a notch along the grain into a piece of wood and practice with epoxy and different fill materials held in place by different glue options. I think you will find that in most cases the filler material will come out darker than the surrounding wood, which is a good thing.

Good luck,
Tony

westerner wrote on Sep 21^st, 2026 at 2:00pm:


Guess we have different ideas of what is invisible Joe.

The only thing I see that's wrong are the lines of the checkering have cut thru the border in places. Why don't you shoot something with it soon?
Didya buy mom a new deer gun? A pre-war custom shop model 70 with English walnut and some tasteful engraving might have soothed the wounded relationship. Or a mink coat.

Well, I bet she'd have liked that m70. Good to have mementos of loved ones.

I don’t expect the crack to be totally closed or invisible.  I just want the toe to be sturdy as this will not be a safe queen rifle. 

I did just order the 4 oil colors that Jonathan mentioned and will try my hand at coloring a seam on one of my forends. Knowing my artistic ability I am unsure I have the talent or patience to make it invisible but you never know.

The secret lies in making one's own artist brushes out of tail hairs from said blind squirrel, but wait until he's subconscious from tree interference . Note: hairs from Rocky the Flying Squirrel are even better, but try plucking them, I dare ya.

Jack, invisibility is really a state of mind. If you truly believe the crack in your stock is invisible, it is invisible. It's all in your head.

The funny thing about a poor visible repair is that your eye will constantly be drawn to it because you know that it's there. The only way to avoid this is to render the repair truly invisible after which you will soon forget about it. I don't mind dings, bruises or other character marks on a piece of furniture or a gunstock but a poorly repaired crack or chip drives me up the walls. If you can live with it it's not for me to say otherwise.