Here is a tip for filling holes and cracks in mil-surp rifle stocks: 

As everyone knows, most fillers won't take stain, even though some claim to.  As for pre-colored fillers, it is always hard to judge how a stain finish is going to come out on hard dense woods.  Even if you don't use stain and opt for a 'natural' finish, you never know how dark or light your stock will be until you actually begin applying oil.  As for epoxies like Acraglas, I don't particularly care to have epoxy on visible parts of my stocks.  Moreover, epoxy is a pain to sand and will not take oil.

 

First off, I do not use poly on my rifle stocks.  I use low gloss tung oil thinned with mineral spirits and use the wet-sand/wipe method to fill the grain.  After that, I finish by hand rubbing thinned tung oil and wiping with the grain.  If you want to stain your stock, mix a spoonful of stain with your wet-sanding mix & sand it on in with the oil.

 

Now on to filling holes. My latest project, a 1938 Mosin Nagant 1891/30, had a hole in the stock in the receiver area.  The hole was about 4mm in diameter with jagged edges and did not quite go all the way through, although there was some minor splintering inside.  I can only imagine what caused the hole, as I didn't find any shrapnel or bone fragments inside the stock.

 

While sanding the stock I noticed that sawdust was filling the hole and I remembered an old modeler's trick.  SAVE YOUR SAWDUST!  I packed sawdust into the hole with my finger & placed one drop of undiluted tung oil on the repair.  A couple days later (while hand rubbing a tung oil / mineral spirits mix into my Mauser K98 stock, I put a drop of the thinned tung oil on the repair.  After a few days dry time, the patch was sandable and matched the rest of the wood very nicely.  I used the technique to fill in a couple other dings as well.

 

As for cracks, the handguard on my Mosin had a crack that ran half the length of and all the way through said handguard.  First, I degreased the piece with the Easy-Off / hot water scrub method and let dry.  Then I painted the entire inside of the handguard with a thin coat of 30-minute epoxy and held the piece tightly while the epoxy cured.  This task is not so onerous if one does it while watching TV.  The trick is to not get any epoxy on the visible outside part of the handguard.  If you fill the crack and squeeze it together, this is exactly what will happen when the epoxy squeezes out.  Next, get out your saved sawdust and fill in any open area of the crack on the outside and apply oil as above.  When finished, the handguard will likely have a visible line where the crack was, but it will be filled and the epoxy will maintain the integrity and strength of the piece.  Be careful when messing with Mosin handguards, as they have a tendency to warp.  One way to avoid this is to set the handguard on the stock (in it's normal place) after the epoxy has set, but not cured.  Wrap the handguard tightly to the stock with string.  If you are worried about accidentally gluing the handguard to the stock, you can put some Saran Wrap between the two.

 

I suppose it would be possible to make a filler putty with sawdust and oil, but I haven't tried that yet. 

Hope this helps,

 

Darren Locke