Help finding a tactical stock

[MadCapKiller@yahoo.com]

FIRST OF ALL I'M A NEW GUY HERE... I need help finding a tatical stock for a 300. WBY. ULTRALITE or a Ruger M77 Mk1 (v) 26" semi bull (varmint) barrel in a 220. swift. I realy feel the need to get a tactical (vertical grip) stock for my 300. WBY. ultralite even if it means changing the barrel. It's a right handed rifle & I am a lefty now (right eye & arm don't work do to a hit & run car) so I need a stock to work both ways. I called LONE WOLF and was told "my action was to narrow"? & would look funny.I looked in all the stock places but no luck. Is my action the same as a WBY.MK V or a vangard? I started to look for a stock (the same type) for a Ruger Mk1 (v) I did find a stock ...but it is a fiberglass copy of the factory one. ANY HELP ? THANKS

[Tomcat088]

FIRST OF ALL I'M A NEW GUY HERE... I need help finding a tatical stock for a 300. WBY. ULTRALITE or a Ruger M77 Mk1 (v) 26" semi bull (varmint) barrel in a 220. swift. I realy feel the need to get a tactical (vertical grip) stock for my 300. WBY. ultralite even if it means changing the barrel. It's a right handed rifle & I am a lefty now (right eye & arm don't work do to a hit & run car) so I need a stock to work both ways. I called LONE WOLF and was told "my action was to narrow"? & would look funny.I looked in all the stock places but no luck. Is my action the same as a WBY.MK V or a vangard? I started to look for a stock (the same type) for a Ruger Mk1 (v) I did find a stock ...but it is a fiberglass copy of the factory one. ANY HELP ? THANKS

Howdy MadCapKiller, welcome to the forum. You gave a little information that is slightly confusing to me, so I'll try to get a bit more and offer as much help as I currently can. You say that you have a "300. WBY. Ultralite", and this is what's confusing. Is the rifle a "Weatherby" rifle, or is it actually some other brand of rifle that is chambered in .300 Weatherby? Because there are other brands of rifles that chamber rifles in .300 Weatherby. Weatherby does make an "ultra lightweight" line, but they don't offer an "ultralite". This is why I want more clarification on what the action is, so that I know which inlet on a stock to tell you about. Some of wha tyou say when you compare the Mark V to Vanguard, makes me think it's a Weatherby rifle, but I just want to make sure.

I'm sorry to here about your accident, and hopefully we can find a stock that will work for you. I understand your need for a stock that is ambidextrous and that the ergonimics will work firing it left handed. I'm curious as to why you think you "need" a vertical pistol grip stock (tactical stock)? Obviously there's nothing wrong with just wanting one, but I'm curious as to why you want to change the stock on the rifle or feel that you need to. I will already tell you straight up that with this particular rifle it could be quite a chore.

There are some decent stocks available for the Weatherby Vanguard/Howa 1500 line, but you won't get a lot of options. Did you have a particular budget or price range that you wanted to stay in? The problem is that the Weatherby Mark V and Weatherby Vanguard actions are different. I'm not a big Weatherby man, so I don't know exactly how different, but I do know that there are some differences. One big differences is that the Mark V has 9 recoil lugs, while the Vanguard action only has 2. This effects their bolt throw, and may result in a different action design; one may the thicker or longer in some places than another, or shorter and thinner in another area. Without seeing both actions or finding good specs for both, I wouldn't be able to tell you if they would fit or not. My guess is that they're probably different, and that the actions have a different "footprint". You may want to call Weatherby to verify this, with that information I may be able to provide a little bit more help.

Even if you find a stock that will fit the action, there's still a bit of a problem. That problem would be the barrel and how thin it is. Most tactical stocks belong on heavy barreled rifles, and your rifle is a lighter contoured barreld (a Weatherby #1). What this means is that even if the stock fits the action, there will be a very large gap between the barrel and barrel channel. To be perfectly honest, it'll look a bit ridiculous, "cheap" and "half ass". For as fine of a rifle as the Mark V is, I think it deserves a proper fit and look; it just seems not quite right to do to a rifle that costs between $1,500-2,000.

So that means that you're probably not going to find a stock that will properly fit the Mark V action with a sporter contour. If you wanted to spend a lot of money, you could have someone like Manners or McMillan build you one that would still have the stock you're looking for, but with a different barrel contour. You'll have a pretty long lead time (all custom stocks do), it'll cost a lot of money, and they'll still question why you want one with a sporter contour, because it just doesn't look "right" to most people.

So that leaves you with the option to rebarrel, which is a valid one. Here's the problem with doing that though, you'll spend a LOT of money to rebarrel the rifle, and it's gonna be quite a chore. You're gonna have to spend a fair bit of money on the barrel itself because it'll have to be custom. There also aren't that many gunsmiths that specialized and work on Weatherby actions (especially the Mark V). This means there will probably be a fairly significant wait time for the smith to be able to get around to it because he's probably covered up in work (not too many Weatherby smiths), and his services will probably be more expensive than a standard Remington 700, Winchester model 70 or Savage gunsmith.

In the end, after all of that, you'd end up with a nice rifle, but you'll have spent a LOT of money, and you'll only have 1 rifle out of spending that much money. For MUCH less money you could just buy a brand new Remington 700 SPS Tactical or Varmint, or a Savage 10/110 with a heavy barrel. Then you could buy a Bell & Carlson Medalist stock, or even a McMillan, and still have a heavy barreled rifle in a tactical stock. Even with a McMillan that will fit the Remington 700, you'll have spent less money than you would on changing out the barrel and getting a stock for your Weatherby Makr V. If you MUST have something that is a tack driver, you could still purchase a Remington 5R, and drop into a Bell & Carlson (or other brand stock), and still have spent less money. Who knows, while the 5R doesn't have a pistol grip style stock, you might like it and decide to stick with it. If you didn't like that stock, you could still sell it for at least $125 (probably a little more) and put that towards whatever other stock you wanted to buy. If you do it this way, with a new rifle that there are aftermarket tactical stocks available for, you'll probably spend the same money or less than doing it with your Weatherby Mark V, and still have 2 nice rifles (as opposed to 1).

Now I'm familiar with the Ruger M77 MKII's, but not the MK1's. Are you able to tell me some differences between the two? To be honest, I don't even know if you could find a quality Ruger M77 MKII tactical stock all that easily. Again, I'm sure that McMillan will inlet one for you, but their stocks are expensive, and I'm not sure what your budget on this probject is. Either way, if they don't have the specs for that particular action, you'd have to pay to ship the barreled action to them so they could get the dimensions correct, and then have to have it shipped back to you (which can get complicated). So I'm not sure that you can find one very easily for that rifle either.

I'm not trying to be a downer or bust your balls or anything, but the reality is, it's gonna be VERY difficult to do what you want with the rifles you mentioned. They're excellent rifles, but just not too many stock makers that will inlet for what you have. There's a reason that most tactical rifles are built on Remington (or same footprint), Savage and Winchester (still limited choices here) actions. It's because the aftermarket tactical style support for them is quite limited. I honestly think you might be better off getting a different rifle and stock for it than you would be rebarreling or having a custom stock made for what you already have. Either way, let me know what you think and if I can help you further.

[MadCapKiller@yahoo.com]

Thank you for the reply, It is a Weatherby utralightweight from Weatherby. I made some calls & I was told "not to alter the Ruger it is a hard to find rifle but...I will give you $900 off on a custom 308.(Rem.700) if you wanna trade it".So I made a call to a co. out west. He also said the same thing the Weatherby action is narrow & will swim in most stocks but... said he will go $1200 on a trade for the Ruger. I was left the Ruger from a death in the family & the Weatherby is a gift so I was going to work with them. I'm just going to build a new gun & leave them for my kids or shoot them at targets. Thanks agine for your help. A side note I shot 3 dimes with the Ruger last year at 200 yds. I came close with Rem. ammo but I hade to use Norma to hit them.Thanks agine.

[Tomcat088]

Thank you for the reply, It is a Weatherby utralightweight from Weatherby. I made some calls & I was told "not to alter the Ruger it is a hard to find rifle but...I will give you $900 off on a custom 308.(Rem.700) if you wanna trade it".So I made a call to a co. out west. He also said the same thing the Weatherby action is narrow & will swim in most stocks but... said he will go $1200 on a trade for the Ruger. I was left the Ruger from a death in the family & the Weatherby is a gift so I was going to work with them. I'm just going to build a new gun & leave them for my kids or shoot them at targets. Thanks agine for your help. A side note I shot 3 dimes with the Ruger last year at 200 yds. I came close with Rem. ammo but I hade to use Norma to hit them.Thanks agine.

Depending on your needs and accuracy, you may not want to build a rifle. Depending on what you make, they vary from expensive to SUPER expensive. $900 is just a drop in the bucket for a custom Remington 700 if it's being done right. You should expect to spend almost 3 times that amount or more if it's done right. I still don't see how the Weatherby action can "swim in a stock" that is custom made for it. When you have a stock made and that is custom inlet, it's made to fit how it should, but ok, whatever they say.

From the sound of your shooting, I don't know that I'd be looking to change or get rid of that Ruger. I'd be more focused on reloads so you don't have to shoot factory ammo. Best of luck to you.

[Bender]

you can pick up a remington 700 for a deacent price used/new in .308 or what ever cal you prefer i just got a nice bell &carlson a2 stock for my 700 ons ale for $234 shipped full alum bed block fit is nice.