I started using wood stocks in 1964. I have used them ever since. I used them in the USMC on my issue M40 (Not "A-Anything. It was a standard first model M40) and I can assure you I was quite effective past 40 yards even when it was wet, (which it was very often.) It was not as good for a Marine Sniper as the later A1, A2, A3 and so on with their plastic stocks ,but a generous free float gap worked into the barrel channel by the armorers did the trick very well and I was able to use it at every range out to 800 without much problem.
I have also used laminate and plastic on and off for many years.
I have sold off all my plastic except for those on my Military autos (with the exception of my M1 which is walnut too)
I just like wood a lot better.
Is it as good as plastic from the standpoint of use?
No, probably not, but the difference is a LOT smaller then the "experts" would have you believe today, assuming the wood stock used for comparison
is made correctly.
If I were going to war, or if I was to move to the everglades I might consider getting a few plastic stock again, but not many even then.
Men using wood for stocks go all the way back to hand cannons and match-locks. The world was about 90% selected by men with guns, nearly all of which has wood stocks by the 1950s. The weather today is not somehow worse then it was in 1950 and water is still water.
How could the wetness of weather make an M40 Marine Corps Snipers Rifle ineffective past 40 yards when it doesn't make a flintlock ineffective at 120 yards? (3 X that range.)
I make flintlock for the largest part of my living. I know wood very well, I know guns well, and I REALLY know flintlocks well. What I write here is not just an "opinion"! It's factual.
If I were to recommend a rifle for "everything" it would depend on what "everything" means for the owner. It also begs the question "is everything also to include everywhere? If so, the closest thing there is to obtain is probably going to be an AR type rifle with most of the metal being aluminum and the furniture all being fiber-glass or plastic in a Semi-Auto in a 308 or something very close to it.
These weight only a bit over 7 pounds before you scope them.
https://pof-usa.com/firearms/revolution/
That is the best "shooting machine" you can probably buy today.
If "everything" also includes large dangerous game you might get a Stainless M-70 Winchester in 375 or 416. If it means a gun to also use for rats and squirrels you might look at a stainless steel/Aluminum Ruger 22 LR for the batter.
But an "Everything and Everywhere rifle" doesn't exist and it never has.
The semi-auto 308 (or 7-08) like one similar to the one in the link above is as close as I have seen in my lifetime.
But if pleasure in owning (and not just using) the rifle is a concern, and you will appreciate the rifle at times when you are not "in combat" or in wet weather for weeks at a time, you might look hard at good wood.
Glass the action, free-float the barrel about .030" and spine the forend with a fiberglass channel, and you will have a rifle that will not "walk" much. Maybe none at all. That's how I have done all my wood stocks and I have had my Mauser 375 H&H in wet weather for up to 11 weeks at a time with no shift in point of impact that was large enough I could hold for it without a bench-rest. When I set that rifle over a bench rest after 11 weeks of being wet I found the Point of Impact has shifted about 1" at 100 yards. For elk, bear, moose and deer it was little enough that I could not even tell it had shifted until I got it over that bench.
In the battle for Okinawa the Marines were pinned down for a long period of time by a horse-shoe shaped semi-circle of Jap Nambu machine guns ,and they finally brought up 2 Snipers to clear them out. Shot were made from 600+ all the way out past 1100 yards and the snipers killed enough of the gunners and crews that the marines below were able to break through the defenses because the guns were silenced. The rains in that battle were horrid and those rifle were wet and had been wet for a long time before those guns were silenced.
The rifles used were 30-06 M1903 variants with Unertl scopes.
Most shooter here have heard of Carlos Hathcock. He used a Winchester M70 in 30-06 for MOST of his kills and later he used an M40 just like the one I used.
Both had wood stocks.
Yes plastic has a small advantage, the mostly of it comes from the fact it's molded to fit, and need not be hand fitted, so they can give excellent results with minimal efforts. But the idea that they are good to XXX range (waaaay out there) and the wood stocks fall apart for anything past 40 yards is in direct opposition to history, and even common sense.
400+ years of firearms history say otherwise.