taking a wood stocked gun duck hunting

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Pecos21

New member
should there be any concern taking a wood stocked gun duck hunting and exposing it to lots of water? Of course, followed by a thorough cleaning, my concern would be wood swelling. What are yalls thoughts?
 
Up until just a few years ago wood was your only choice. For the most part I really am not crazy about plastic stocks, the guns don't seem to balance as well for me. I have sealed all the wood end grain on my stocks with spar varnish, a couple of coats and I generally paste wax the exterior of them prior to hunting. Short of dropping the gun in a lake, I don't think I have ever seen a problem. It is true, the plastic stocks are pretty darn bulletproof when it comes to water damage. I suppose if we could get totally stainless steel guns and plastic stocks, weather would never be a concern.
 
I wouldn't worry about it unless you drop it in the water. I've taken mine out and sat near a lake and walked through countless marshes and nothing went wrong with mine. No visible swelling at all.
 
Nothing to worry about. My favorite duck-hunting gun has wood stocks, and the only damage it ever got was a few very minor scratches in the stock from a long ride in the back of a pickup truck. Had I been a little smarter (this was 30 years ago), I'd at least have put it in a case first. :o
 
Duck hunting is quite a bit older that synthetic stocks. Don't leave it in the boat over the winter, and things should be o.k. Let it dry and clean it good after any real exposure to the elements.
 
Even if you drop it in the water, just break it down when you get home, set the parts on a table with a 100 watt bulb shining on them from about 10" away over night. It will drive any residual moisture out of the cracks. Lightly re lube in the morning.

If you drop it in salt water bring it home and dunk it in severa batches of fresh hot water to dissolve any salt that is in it and do the light bulb thing again.

Jeff
 
Advice from an old duck hunter: Don't t take a gun Duck Hunting unless you are willing to use it as an oar!:D


(Unload first, of course)
 
Thats "Canoe Paddle", and a lot of us have them.
Great comment!

I did learn a lesson on the wood rifle stocks. On my old 77R i free floated the barrel by shimming under the receiver. We had a very wet season and i had a bad warp in my forearm. The channel in the forearm was ruff cut and never had any sealer on it. it took a couple months on the bench weighted down to get it back without doing any carving.
You just don't have those kind of problems with a SH%t Pipe.
 
I have seen many guns with a thin layer of finish that would turn "cloudy" if they got wet, sometimes it dries and doesn't show and sometimes it is permanent........ follow Geoff's advise on the oar concept........... or replace the wood with plastic..... about 80 bucks for most guns......
 
shellac can cloud, and i've seen linseed cloud. a proper finish is easy to apply, there is no good reason to leave your favorite gun home. refinish it!

Jeff
 
"follow Geoff's advise on the oar concept".

Actually that advice was given to me by an "Old Duck Hunter", I cannot take credit for it.:D

The synthetic stock is a good idea, easily available for the 870 and not a chore to mount.
 
Anytime you take a wooden stock gun out into heavy rain or weather - you need to take the stock off and dry it out / clean it really well. If you don't - you may have a lot of rust and other problems. But I often take some of my wooden stock guns duck hunting ( and I don't use them as a paddle ...)
 
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BigJim, the paddle and oar comment is of course metaphorical. It's just that a gun in that environment is more likely to be damaged than almost any other hunting situation. I hunt ducks and geese with a Rem 11-87 mag with camo synthetic stocks and I have been know to stumble and fall and the gun goes down with me, mud, blood and all. I took a header this past winter in a swamp when a limb caught me just above the ankle, and to my knees I went. As I stood back up and pulled the poor gun out of the water it was covered with mud. Disassemble and rinse it off in the water and back to work we go. Once home it gets stripped and properly cared for but accidents like that happen to everyone at some point in their hunting career. I don't think a wooden stocked gun would have survived without some ill effects to the stocks...... If you can keep them dry and don't let them go swimming then it's all good.............
 
Reminds me of a great friend that passed a few years ago, We were jump shooting on a local river, i had never done this river before and didn't know about the rapids. He wanted to portage around them, and i asked to take a closer look as i was in the front of the sport boat(Grumman) they looked inviting, so i gave a big thrust, and down we went. Poor old Dick(rest his soul) dropped his paddle, and grabbed his Rem 1100, and hung on to it for dear life. i was doing everything from the front, and kept telling him to grab his paddle. He kept saying, "I worked to many OT shifts for this shotgun to loose it", Well he got to keep it but my paddle was just a spear, and he wouldn't let me use his 1100 to help him the rest of the way. My 870 was just too precious to use as a paddle.
We hunted together many years after, and that story came up many times.

RIP Big Dick!
 
It's good to see that you all have a sense of humor like I do.

I have seen people stranded before that have used a Model 870 Remington for more than just a shotgun.

They are like a Timex, they take a licking and keep on ticking.

I wouldn't worry about duck hunting with any newer model of shotgun - as long as it is american.

My first shotgun was a Mossberg that I bought with money from a summer job when I was 15 years old from a store called Jamesway.

Jamesway was kind of like a Wal Mart, except they didn't have the flasht store front or sales people or advertising like Wal Mart has.

I can remember times where I hunted rabbits in the pouring down rain for 6 hours at a time and it never warped , swelled or showed any signs of water damage. Just that it was only a 20 ga and you couldn't pump it without it jamming and I traded it on a Sportsman Model 48 16 Ga semi auto shotgun.

Then I traded that shotgun because 16 ga ammo was like $9 a box and you could get 12 ga ammo for like $3 a box at any old store you wanted to.

I went through a lot of shells back then.
 
+1 Gamesmaster.

My waterfowl (now water foul) gun is my battered 1100 synthetic. I reckon I have put 20,000 rds through that gun and just keeps going. I would be loath to take a nice wooden gun in some places I have hunted, espically canadas in the thorns and hills. Keep to synthetic, you will never look back!
 
A wood stocked Remington Wingmaster or Browning A5 is all I have ever hunted ducks with. Can't recall any down side. They are just guns. Wear and tear are part of the game.
 
I agree Bailey - no offesnse intended. But as I've done often, going in and out of a duck blind via boat - I don't have any problem taking a wooden stocked gun or even an over under into a duck blind. But if I was trudging thru a swamp - sure abs plastic is the way to go.

My travel gun (let the airlines beat it up )/ wet weather gun is a Benelli super sport comfort tech stock - when I don't feel like getting the wooden stock guns real wet.
 
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