Thread: Add weight to synthetic stock

I'm wanting to add some weight to my rifle stock, easiest way would be to fill it up with lead shot, but I don't have any of that sitting around, and looks like you can only buy it in 10kg bags.
Fishing sinkers or dive weights is another thought, but not sure if they will actually fit (and I dont have anything on hand to try).

Has anyone done similar and have any ideas I can try?

No idea how much weight it's possible to add in the butt cavity, but any weight added will help it sit on on a rear bag and bipod better.

What fits will probably depend on the rifle, have you unscrewed the butt plate to see how much room there is?

I stuck a couple of old lead paperweights inside the butt of a synthetic Savage Mk2 to improve the balance and it worked pretty well.

Whatever you have lying around that will fit is worth experimenting with I reckon.

I don’t know about adding weight to a rifle stick, but if you want a smaller quantity of lead shot, Google “diving lead shot NZ”. There are a few options, but expensive.

what's the rifle ? and what are you trying to achieve ? tighter groups ? less recoil ?
Sometimes synthetic stocks won't shoot well off a bipod becos the fore end is simply not stable enough (too much flex).
You can stiffen up the fore end by bedding job that extends down thru the ribs. This will add a little bit of weight too.
If you're end game is tighter groups I'd be going for bedding job before adding weight anywhere else.

Originally Posted by chainsaw

what's the rifle ? and what are you trying to achieve ? tighter groups ? less recoil ?
Sometimes synthetic stocks won't shoot well off a bipod becos the fore end is simply not stable enough (too much flex).
You can stiffen up the fore end by bedding job that extends down thru the ribs. This will add a little bit of weight too.
If you're end game is tighter groups I'd be going for bedding job before adding weight anywhere else.

It's a 22lr Tikka T1x, so definitely not too tame recoil.
I'm not hoping to improve accuracy per se, but make the rifle heavier so it's easier to shoot accurately when accuracy testing, but wanted it easily removable for general use.

I found some diving weights on Trademe and made up some cardboard box templates to try fitting them in the butt, worked pretty well reckon I'd get x3 500g weights in there.
But then I remembered I had 1.5kg of stainless tumbling pins (I haven't done any tumbling for a long time, thank goodness).
I put them all in a plastic zip lock bag and tried stuffing it in there, subsequently pouring them all over the floor.
So I picked them up again with the magnet I used the last few times I split them everywhere, put the bag in first, then poured the pins into the bag.
I reckon I got about 1.2kg in there.

Funnily enough the gun feels really heavy now, so just need to test whether it's achieved what I'd hoped it would.
If the wind dies down this evening I may test tonight, failing that I should get a chance over the next few days.

I had the same thought with my RCBS powder trickler, it seemed to be a bit light and tended to move around a little too much, so I packed the base of it with fishing sinkers and blu tack.

If you want something more permanent, try fishing sinkers and blu tack until you have the weight right, then replace the blutack with silicon.

small ball sinkers (i used lead shot) in a ziplock bag to the desired weight, then mold to the cavity shape with a bit of duct tape and to stop the bag tearing.
I ended up with 350 grams in it iirc with heaps of room to spare. depends how heavy you want it

I stuffed a sheet into my old Tikka stock to try and take some of the hollow sound out when banging it on trees in the jungle. I'd say you could add a kilo to that in lead no sweat

i just cut a few shot gun shells to bits and used that

also used newtech bog to hold it in place
it worked well

Depending on the shape, you could snip lengths of solder into the cavity? Otherwise I have some very soft roofing lead that I can drop you next time I'm passing through (this weekend)

Fill it with glass blasting media

Originally Posted by MSL

Fill it with glass blasting media

How about West Coast iron sand? Density almost twice that of normal sand.

Originally Posted by Cordite

How about West Coast iron sand? Density almost twice that of normal sand.

And guaranteed to rust anything around

Wont it sound like a set of maraccas?

It’s a fine powder, so it’ll fill the hollow completely. I used it to fill a rear rifle rest, heavier than sand by volume.