On 27 Aug 2005 12:39:13 -0700, "Eric Bragas"
wrote:

I have a rifle with a wooden stock. One of the screw holes is so worn


This is a very common repair. Any competent gunsmith (or let's be honest
here, even a fairly shoddy plumber) can do a good permanent repair. Like
all gun repairs it needs to be well-done, not just a bodge, because the
strains of shooting it will work most bodges loose.

Any decent gunsmithing book ought to describe this too.

What's a "screw" here anyway?

For woodscrews, insert a wooden plug. This is ideally a similar timber
to the stock and should be old, stable, dry timber. Don't bake the
insert to dry it (it might split the stock if it gets wet again). Don't
use oak (it will stain with iron, and also makes the screw hard to
remove). Walnut is itself a good material. Don't be afraid to enlarge
the hole to get a decent plug into it.

The pre-drill the plug a little to give your screw a start into it.

For parallel-threaded machine screws (which you do sometimes see screwed
directly into timber stocks), then do it properly and insert a metal
nut. These can either be inserts designed to screw into timber, or they
can have a coarse surface and be glued in. I use a boxful of little
brass ones with knurled outers that were originally meant to be pushed
hot into plastic. They hold fine in timber with a little epoxy. Brass is
hard to glue, but the knurling helps.

When gluing screw inserts, check alignment with the screw itself - but
watch you don't glue the whole thing together!