As you may recall, I picked up a Mini-14GB last month. Fine gun, nothing wrong with it. (The magazine was a different issue.) But…that wooden stock…..
An email to the fine like-minded individuals at Choate for a replacement stock revealed that not only did they have the stock I wanted, it was available in something other than the ubiquitous black – a nice shade of green. Yes please! Arrived today. Thus:
For my anticipated needs, I really like rifle furniture that is something other than black. Black just jumps out at you since large pitch black objects are not something you normally see everyday and when you do, well, isn’t your attention drawn to them? This is the reason I went with the green laminate on my Scout rifle and the green laminate on my .22….. I think they blend in with my environment much better than black.
Why get rid of the wood stock? Well, Im not getting rid of it as such…I’ll keep it for some tinkering projects, but if the time comes when leaving the house every morning includes throwing a rifle into the back of the vehicle or slinging it into a scabbard on a motorcycle, getting rained on, dropped, banged around, and generally abused….well, the Choate products are, literally, pretty tough to beat.
The stock itself is deliciously rugged, it took all of a couple minutes to transfer the hardware from the wooden stock to the Choate stock, nothing needed fitting, and although I havent checked it yet, I think it might be a tad lighter.
When I buy gear for the sake of increasing my odds of survival and comfort in the uncertain future, one of the rubrics is durability and survivability – in short, I need things that can withstand abuse or neglect and still perform all or some their function. This is why I’m a huge fan of the Choate replacement stocks for my shotguns. A Mossberg 500 that was buried in mud after Katrina will probably be rusted and need a couple parts replaced, but you could hose off that Choate forend and stock and you’d never know they spent a month under a mountain of wet sewage and sludge. Thats the sort of property that I want my gear to have… I try to take care of my gear, I try not to abuse it, but if the time comes where I have to neglect it and let the chips fall where they may..well..it’s nice to know they’ll hold up juuuuuuuust fine.
Other than a couple factory mags, this concludes my financial expenditures into this gun. I have enough ARs and PTR’s that it would be a strange circumstance indeed that this gun becomes my go-to carbine. But…it is an uncertain world, after all.
Choate products: Concur.
Thanks for the “A-team” earworm, buddy. I’ll be hearing that for the rest of the weekend.
And it looks great. Nice job.
Why fixed instead of folding? Shorter is usually better for stowage or storage. I’m assuming Choate still makes it…
Frankly, that was the only good thing about the factory articulated folder, it was VERY compact when in stowed condition.
Slow to get set up, mounted to a wood stock, and no cheek weld. They could at least have used a composite stock, as the wood always seemed rather flimsy at the mount.
Stowage has never really been a concern for me. I suppose if I were to dedicate this gun to being, say, an under-the-seat gun in the vehicle then it might make sense to have the side folder… But I dont foresee a need that would make me give up the advantages of the fixed stock. I do have a folder for one of my 10/22 though.
For me, one of the most satisfying thing about acquiring a new firearm is researching, contemplating, and executing on improvements to the “out of the box” configuration. Even a great firearm (like a Benelli M4 or an FN SCAR) has certain compromises in its NIB configuration. Upgrading stock, triggers, forends, pins, spring, etc. It’s easy to spend another 50% on the original purchase price, but it’s fun to do and reassuring to know that your already-excellent firearm is as ruggedized and “SHTF-ready” as possible.
I dunno. It seems like most of the time when people ‘upgrade’ a gun from its ‘stock’ configuration, something suffers…accuracy, reliability, durability, etc. Thats not to say you can’t upgrade to a better-than-factory result, just that often many people wind up making things worse.
Yeah, there’s a difference between “making improvements/upgrades” and “tacking on a bunch of aftermarket shit.”
“tacking on a bunch of aftermarket shit”
I believe we call such people “mall ninjas”
That is a nice stock. It appears to me the pull length has been lengthened a bit. Does it have the same ‘feel’ in offhand and prone positions ?
I’d say improvement too.
Their folding one in metal would have been a better choice imho
I’ve had my choate stock on my mini 14 for over 15 tears, best add-on I ever bought (besides decent sites, since ranch sites are terrible). Also amazing how expensive a new mini-14 is now (over $850, mine was $390)