I am not a gunsmith, nor a stockmaker. Nor can I recommend some of the things that I've done.
But, this is something that I attacked in 2013:
(Long, messy post incoming...)
It was a Savage 258 bolt-action 20 ga shotgun that was rolled over by a horse, or driven over by a truck.
I bought it at an auction for nothing (something like $8). When I got home and took a better look, I realized that this stock was trash. "There was no saving it," ... so to speak.
The only thing holding the butt stock to the fore-end was a small piece of wood on the right side of the mag well - maybe 3/8" square. Everything else was broken clean-through the inletting. Some cracks started at the front action screw. Some started at the back of the mag well. Some just ran the length of the stock. Some ran through all of the inletting. And all of the 'bulkheads' in the inletting were broken out, including the recoil shoulder.
But, what did I have to lose, as long as the finished product didn't scare me?
Unfortunately, the only 'before' picture is horrendously blurry and you can't make heads or tails of what's going on with the stock.
Messy, messy, messy. I have no excuses for it - I just didn't care, since I knew what was happening afterward and was working on the guest bed in our crappy apartment at the time.
The epoxy-filled hole on the wrist was actually a vent for a steel pin that was inserted through the wrist from the bottom of the pistol grip.
With some of the cracks pointed out:
The red arrow is pointing to the front action screw area, where there were 3 more cracks and major reinforcement needed (no picture of that).
All of the indicated cracks on the near side wrap down, under the stock, and terminate at the rear of the mag well.
I pieced what I could back together of the recoil shoulder, turned it into a big epoxy lump, then drilled a 1/4" hole one radius (1/8") from the edge and broached with 1/4" chisel for as precise of a hole as I could get with the tools on hand. I cleaned everything back up and epoxied it all back in after the big cracks were pinned.
After the stock was pinned, screwed, epoxied, and cured, I went back and epoxy-bedded the recoil lug.
But, again, I had no photo. So this is a photo from 10 minutes ago...
The arrows indicate areas where you can just make out the brass reinforcement I used for the recoil shoulder, under the dark epoxy.
I beat the ever-living crap out of that thing, in my effort to see whether or not I would trust having that jagged, sharp piece of wood on the wrist, just inches from my face when it was fired. Eventually, I figured it was good to go, and ran some rounds through it. It did well, and has become a family favorite.
Painted (with texture! ;-)) to hide the laziness and messiness:
And, almost three years and 400 rounds later (plus whatever my nephews have put through it)... She's still holding strong.
(With a recycled butt pad added in
early 2014.)
In the end, as noted in another post, I ended up with:
"...14 cracks repaired, several holes filled, 3 threaded pins, 1 brass recoil boss reinforcement, 1 brass pin, 2 screws, and several dowels..."
And the stock gained over a pound between the pins, screws, paint, and epoxy.