Copyright 2019 - Stephen Redgwell
If you prefer laminated wood, the Boyd's AT-One is a good hunting stock. The laminations and waterproof
finish make it almost impervious to moisture. You may want to seal the underside of the wood with wax or a couple of thin
coats of Urethane however.
They cost $199 USD. I have two. The one pictured above holds a rebarreled Stevens
200 chambered in 225 Win. I have another on a 6x45mm, and will be getting a third for a 243 Win. They have performed well
for me the past two years. Boyds offers 18 different colours. My 225 Win is fitted with a Pepperwood stock.
Comfort and fit are relative things, but like a tailored suit, the AT-One has a range of adjustments that
can be made, so that the rifle fits you. The length of pull (LOP) can be adjusted up to 1.5 inches. The cheek rest has 9/16th
inch of travel. It also has a 1/2 inch recoil pad, but the two rifles I have don't require one. I just like the fact that
the buttpad remains where I put it on my shoulder without sliding around.
You can see that their inletting is well done. Comfort and fit are relative things, but like a tailored
suit, the AT-One has a range of adjustments that can be made, so that the rifle fits you. The length of pull (LOP) can be
adjusted up to 1.5 inches. The cheek rest has 9/16th inch of travel. It also has a 1/2 inch recoil pad, but the two rifles
I have don't require one. I just like the fact that the butt pad remains where I put it on my shoulder without sliding around.
The grip and the forend can be swapped out for other configurations. i.e. If you are shooting off a bench, or just want
something that suits you.
There are no gaps or sloppy cuts on either of my rifles.
About 10 years ago, I bought a few plain Jane Savage rifles that were marketed as Stevens 200s. They
were simply pre-Accutrigger Savage Model 10s. For those of you with basic mechanical skills, the Savages can be reworked
to whatever you want. It's very easy to change the barrel, trigger and stock. The Boyds stock was one of the improvements.
The barrel is made by a new company called Preferred Barrel Blanks (PBB), a subsidiary of Match Grade Machine. It is what they call a No 1 Sporter contour with 0.630 inch muzzle diameter. That simply means the shape of the barrel
is similar to the factory contour - but not quite. The original factory barrel tapered to 0.585 inches at the muzzle. I
expected the slightly larger diameter would mean hogging out some channel wood. Luckily, that was not the case.
Fully configured - that's scoped and a bipod - it comes in at 10 lb 12 oz. That's 4 lb 2 oz heavier than
the Savage factory rifle.
More information on this is available at the Boyds Gunstocks site.
Where does the extra weight come from? Some is the Boyds stock. It weighs 48 oz. instead of 29 oz for Savage's
plastic one.
Then there's the extra weight of the barrel. The original factory barrel tapered to 0.585 inches
at the muzzle and was 22 inches long.. The PBB barrel tapers to 0.630 inches at the muzzle, or about 0.045 inches larger in
diameter - and it is 24 inches long.
And I have a 13 oz bi-pod on it.
This is a hunting
rifle with a 1 in 9 twist barrel. Since I've owned it, the 225 has been on a couple dozen hikes through the woods here in
Central Ontario. It's managed to take several coyotes with an old timey load of IMR 4064 and a 55 gr. Hornady bullet.
The bi-pod is the tilting kind, and mates to the AT-One quite nicely. That's because the forend is flat and 1 inch wide.
The bi-pod tightened up nicely and has not worked itself loose.
When I put everything together, there was a little fitting required in the magazine well. It looked to
be a little ridge of wood left by the bit when it was being inletted. I removed it easily with a Dremel tool. The front
screw needed to be shortened one thread as well. Neither was the fault of the stock.
Sir John A Macdonald, the
fellow on the tenner, told me that the barrel was free floated. The price in USD for this and other prefits from PBB is
$325. It was about $550 CDN. That's the cost of the barrel, imported into Canada by Nine35, with shipping and 13% HST.
Over the Christmas break, I swapped out the original scope for another. Here's how
the sight in went. That's only three shots, but I got lucky, not needing to make any big adjustments. The new scope came
off another Stevens 200, and everything lined up almost perfectly.
You can check out Preferred Barrel Blanks here. And remember, they make more than blanks. I think I would have called the
company Preferred Barrels. Just sayin'.
Preferred Barrel Blanks
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