Last week we were shooting some C&R weapons.

I was shooting my old Lithgow SMLE. Here's a picture of it from a couple of years ago.

As you can see, the wood didn't match too well, but the metal was sound and it shot well.

I fired a few magazines full and laid it on the bench.

Tman said, "Look at that. Your stock has split."

And, sure enough, it had.

I started by mixing up a two-part epoxy that I have used before with excellent results.

I then used a toothpick to work it into the crack, which I held open with a screwdriver.

And here. I then closed it up and used woodworking clamps to clamp it tight.

I let it set overnight. The next morning, it looked pretty good.
It would have to be sanded, but that didn't bother me.

We decided to also put a little insurance on the job, by adding a couple of Ishapore Indian brass screws through the stock.

This is not a problem with these rifles, as mine already had several in the stock from past reworks at the factory that the Brits called FTR or Factory Thorough Repairs.

We went to a hardware store and bought a couple of course threaded brass screws.

I used the drill press to drill a couple of holes through the areas of the stock that had split.

You don't want the screw holes to be too tight, as that would only encourage more splitting problems.

I then filled the holes with the epoxy and covered the threads of the screws with the epoxy and screwed them into place.