Plastic stocks, hmmmm, love hate. In 1990 I had my dream rifle built by a local gunsmith in Green Bay. Just a classic old German curmudgeon who was a machinist for the rail road and a tight fisted but nice old man, if, he liked you. I tried my best to stay on his good side.
What I wanted was a beautiful sporting rifle along the lines of Oscartheflyer's new to him 6.5x55. I wanted Al Biesen and Adolph Miner and the whole panoply of Jack O'Connor's custom gun builder/stockers. But I knew in my heart of hearts that such things of beauty were A. Beyond my means at the time, and B. Too beautiful to subject to the rigors of the field. One dent in the 22 line per inch checkering would have thrust me into a funk deep and dark enough to require counseling. Then there was the metal finish. Oh and light weight, I wanted light weight because I knew I would not be riding horses across the Yukon potting Moose, and Grizzlies, and Sheep. I'd be riding shank's mare in Wyoming and Colorado if lucky on self guided drop camps at best.
The caliber was never in question, it would be a 7x57 by God and would shoot Nosler 160 grain semi spitzers and that was that! In the end I bought a Rimrock graphite composite stock, a Douglas XX premium feather weight barrel to install on the 1939 Oberndorf Mauser action previously sporterized by some unknown but talented individual, judging from the nicely done bolt handle, drilling and tapping for both scope and Lyman receiver sight that were square to the world, and the Jaeger low swing safety and trigger. That whole package came in a decent, conservative walnut stock, with the original 8x57 barrel turned down to remove the steps, and set me back a whole $90 at a gun show in Oshkosh B'Gosh, Wisconsin. Had I had half a functioning brain I'd have left it alone, but "everyone knows" an 8x57 is no damned good. I had already played with one and never found a bullet I liked. The 8 needed a stream lined beauty like Sierra made in 175 grains and they shot like target bullets and expanded at 8x57 velocities like FMJ's. Sierra's excuse was they needed to be strengthened with "the advent" of the 8m/m Remington Magnum. Those were Sierra's words. Having bullets pencil through two deer turned me of the 8 for years.
Anyway, plastic stocks. I had the electroless nickeled barrel action tucked neatly into that Rimrock "plastic" stock. Beautiful clean lines, they hired someone with brains to lay out that lovely/ugly stock. Fits me like a good shotgun, allowed to take a quartering snap shot as a bedded dry cow burst out of her snowy boudoir at 35 yards following a two hour stalk. The 160's had not worked out at that time and I was using Nosler 175 semi-spitzers that were wonderfully accurate and penetrated like an auger.
So my beautiful brain child turned out to be a ruthlessly efficient, but svelte, 6 lb. 10 oz. black and silver killing machine with a piece of black electrical tape typically guarding her muzzle from rain and snow. My other two "plastic" stocked rifles are a Kidd 10-22 in a Victor Titan stock and my Bergara B-14 .22 Model 700 clone bolt gun that wild horses couldn't drag outa my sweaty palms.
Then there is the how to ruin an otherwise beautiful wood stock as demonstrated by CZ with their MTR Varmint .22. I saw one in a gun store when I was contemplating the whole ELR .22 game. The highly figured wood stock was intriguing and the somewhat vertical pistol grip with integral palm swell was comfortable and appealing. The ugly short bull barrel that is de rigueur these days is somewhat off putting but can be visually and off hand balance wise compensated for with a thread on barrel extension. What could not be ameliorated was the dreadful laser engraving they put on the wood on the side of the stock opposite the bolt. All of the images in CZ's advertisements show the rifle from the bolt side. It was only when I held the rifle that I noticed the atrocity. In my mind I relate this disfigurement to tattooing "PROM QUEEN" on the forehead of the cute little teen next door when she acceded the throne.