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Gunsmithing Sling swivel studs rotating in Tikka factory stock

keenedge

Sergeant of the Hide
Full Member
Minuteman
Aug 18, 2020
107
80
Recently I installed Grovtec sling swivels and a sling onto the factory sling swivel studs of my hunting rifle (stock is the T3x Lite OEM synthetic--has factory sling swivel studs on the bottom, 1 front 1 rear). Goal is to learn and start using the sling more for shooting support. As I experiment with positions, under even moderate torque from the sling, the rear stud keeps rotating. I've tightened it, but it doesn't feel like there's a lot of material there in that light synthetic stock. It definitely feels like if I torque it down any harder, it'll strip, and I've read of other people doing this. Sounds like this is a fairly common issue for folks using lightweight factory stocks.

Which raises the question: what's the best way to create a solid sling swivel interface to this rifle? Some options...
- Install some aftermarket stud that's stronger and can handle the extra force of using the sling from different shooting positions?
- Or use some epoxy or Loctite to cement it in place?
- Or give up on the stock and go get a Manners/McMillan (willing to as a fallback, but prefer to keep the OEM for now, it's actually a pretty nice LW stock and I like it)?
- Other options?
 
Loctite will not really do anything significant with the coarse threads they usually use on the injection molded stocks. A 2 part epoxy would be the way I would go.