CHOATE MACHINE & TOOL'S ULTIMATE SNIPER STOCK

In August of last year, we received a stock from Choate Machine and Tool that was co- designed by the people at Choate and Major John Plaster (ret.). Most of you have probably heard of Choate Machine and Tool, and many are familiar with Major Plaster from his Ultimate Sniper book and Videos. Together, they have designed the finest tactical stock I have seen for the price.

I will touch on a lot of the finer features of the stock, but if I tried to cover them all, with all the reasons behind each, I'd be here till tomorrow. Now, I'm not a sniper and some of the specs I'll mention here meant nothing to me before doing some research, so I'll be quoting Choate for a lot of the specs.

The stock is made of DuPont Rynite SST-35. It is said to be one of most suitable polymers for gun stocks as well as one of the most expensive. They mold the stock in dark O.D. green color, but black and camo are available. Rynite takes paint very well so you can paint your stock with almost any automotive spray can paint.

When first looking at the stock, it does not look like the conventional sniper/target stock you are familiar with. If you are familiar with Com-Bloc weapons, it looks like it could have come off a Dragunov. The skeletonized design accomplishes a few things besides just looking sexy, like weight reduction and providing an off hand notch. The advantage of this feature in a sniper stock is that you can now hold your butt stock on your shoulder with your off hand. This allows the trigger hand to relax and concentrate only on the trigger pull. There is a fine adjusting screw for elevation below the off hand notch that will raise or lower the stock only .00017 of an inch per turn. This screw has about 2" of engagement and can be removed with ease when not needed. It is very easy to adjust with the thumb and index finger on either side of the stock. This allows coarse adjustments to be made with the bi pod legs and the 'spot-on' adjustment done with the screw.

The rubber recoil pad has five height settings with the center setting lining up with the stock and there are two 1/4" positions up and two down to allow a more custom fit.

Length of pull adjustments can be made using provided spacers and two cheek pieces are provided to accommodate both low mounts and high mounts. The cheek piece can also be adjusted forward or backward and can be reversed for left-hand shooters.

The forend of the stock is equipped with a "T" rail, which allows many accessories to be placed on your rifle. They furnish a solid steel 'T' bar with a detachable sling swivel stud installed. This is for the mounting of a Harris bi pod. Many other accessories may be mounted on this bar. The 'T' bar has a quick detach thumbscrew. Some shooters may want two bi pods mounted, short for prone and tall for sitting position. Additional 'T' bars are available. Also any accessory that fits an Anschutz rifle will also fit this 'T' rail. The forend is 2 3/8" wide to also assist in holding the rifle in a stable shooting position. There are also four slots on the forend for the attaching of camo material to the stock, not the barrel. This keeps the camo material from adversely effecting accuracy. There are no accommodations on most stocks for camo material.

 

There are also side mounted sling swivel studs that go through a cored hole in the stock. This prevents the studs from getting in the way when shooting 'from a rest'. Major Plaster explained to Choate, during the design phase of this stock, that a sniper crawling on his belly carries his rifle on top of his upper arm and/or across his back while holding the sling in his hand. A side-mounted sling is perfect for this application.

The stippling in the grip areas is very rough to the touch. This feature is great if you ever shoot while wearing gloves. The front grip area is narrowed to accommodate a one-hand carry of the rifle at its balance point.

Here are some points of interest not mentioned above:

LIFE TIME WARRANTY
STOCK CAN BE PAINTED WITH AUTOMOTIVE SPRAY PAINT
ALLOWS FOR FREE FLOATING THE BARREL
ALUMINUM BEDDING BLOCKS AS A STANDARD
PRICED LOW ENOUGH FOR EVERYONE


This high quality stock will fit the following weapons:

o Remington 700 Long Action
o Remington 700 Short Action ( ADL or BDL models)
o Savage 110
o Winchester model 70 current Production (not Pre-64 model)


One more thing, I mounted this stock on my Savage 110FP in .308, (no way a shoulder breaker) this stock reduced felt recoil by about half. Don't ask me to explain this outside of it being in the design.

For more information on this stock, Visit Choate Machine and Tool's Web site at www.riflestock.com

By: Fletch Ruckman