Archangel Stock
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One of the first rifles I acquired is a Swedish Mauser Model 96 6.5x55. I turned it over to a gunsmith here in my home town to transform it into a hunting rifle close to twenty five years ago I guess. When I picked it up he had put it in a Choate composite stock. Kind of rubbery material but it served the purpose and was cheap. I did a little extra work on it over the years and I still pull it out every now and then and shot several deer and pigs with it in that stock. My recent project involving a Model 98 Yugo sent me stock shopping a couple of weeks ago and I ended up hitting the place order button on an Archangel Stock made by Pro Mag. Drop in full inlet magazine fed for short and long action large ring 98's. Perfect. Don't like it on a Yugo knock out a couple of inserts and set a long action 98 in there. After a little grinding and cussing I got my Yugo bolted in finally but the rail section that goes in the front of the stock for a bipod shipped separately. Being the impatient youngster I am I just had to go test drive this thing. I loaded up a magazine with three dummy loads and by golly they fed, no problems just be sure you push the bolt straight in not down at the rear when you start the forward motion. I loaded up and hurried to the range ahead of this cold front and tried a few targets off of bags in a stiff crosswind gusting to about thirty. There was one guy there shooting that tried parking his truck to block the wind. I thought why do that the wind is blowing the same a hundred yards away I guess it was rocking him around too much. Even my big but was getting pushed around. Anyway, my bag combinations didn't work for this thing and kept sliding around accompanied with the wind groups were not even 1 moa. If you don't have a death grip on a Mauser accuracy is hard to achieve with all the mechanical things working against you. A little different shooting one of these older actions. So I got the rail and pulled the action out of the stock and did some more grinding and monkeyed with the trigger a little and installed the rail. There is another feature this stock has. In the fore end there is a recess and a hole that a vee block sets in and a jack screw is accessible from the bottom of the rail section. This block can be adjusted for up pressure on the barrel if so desired like a pressure pad some factory rifles have in the barrel channel. Might tighten up groups for a skinny barrel. Hopefully my next try the winds will be calm and I can get a good foundation on the rifle. Only got one picture the lighting was wrong for the broadside view I will take a couple more and a better range report.
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Broadside view. Squeeze bag worked the best, I couldn't get my left hand in to manipulate the rear Caldwell bag worth a hoot. It's worth the buck fifty I paid for it.
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Where's the pic?
