Cracked stock 24S? (Newbie)

I'm probably being dense, but I'm having trouble following where your stock is cracked. I'll bet it's at one or more of the scallops where the wood half-moons into the receiver. If so, yes, those cracks are an extremely common occurrence on the Model 24 with scalloped wood. And, yes, the cracks can be repaired quite successfully, although it takes careful work and probably would mean a complete refinishing of the stock. I've had stocks with the triangle-shaped pieces that crack out actually missing. By carefully selecting wood with equal grain and coloration, followed by time-consuming cutting and fitting and gluing and sanding and staining, I've been able to create an almost imperceptible repair (sometimes!). It's much easier if all the original wood is present; putting in new wood sometimes calls for using inletting black to get the correct fit, a real trial-and-error process and not for the impatient. I have a whole collection of Xacto-type carving knives and blades to use on these projects; I find them indispensable for stock work. Dental picks with assorted tips are also useful. I also have various homemade tools ranging from broken bicycle spokes with honed ends to crochet hooks with sharpened tips. The key is to get as tight a joint as possible between the old and new wood when gluing. It can be really tough to get regular clamps to hold things correctly, so I often resort to a length of surgical tubing to hold everything in place while the glue sets. I prefer Gorilla Glue, but other good-quality wood glue can work, too. I've actually had stocks that someone has patched back together with rubber cement (why do people do such things?!?!); that's where the homemade tools come into play to get the rubbery stuff out of all the nooks and crannies. So be patient, and good luck with your project.

OK, I see you have a model with the flat-front stock rather than the scallops. From the pictures, it looks like this crack can be easily repaired. Assuming the wood sliver is still partly connected to the rest of the stock, just inset a very thin blade (such as that of an Xacto knife, into the split just enough to force (usually with a bare finger) some glue into the break, then clamp it tightly however you can. If the sliver is totally detached, it's a bit trickier getting it held in the correct position, but it can be done with careful clamping. To me, a bigger challenge than the crack is refinishing this type of stock. The wood is ... uh ... a bit less desirable than walnut, and usually much harder to refinish so it looks good. The finish on these stocks, in my experience, is impossible to touch up. Totally stripping, staining, refinishing is the only solution I have found, and it's darned hard to recreate the original factory finish, which was almost like some sort of paint. I hope others on this site can offer better refinishing advice for this type of Savage/Stevens finish than I can. Again, best of luck with the project.

For most of the production of the model 24, Savage used a method of mating and matching the stocks and frames involving heat. The results of this process rendered a much closer connection between the wood and metal. This method, combined with an over torqued buttstock screw, causes the common cracking problem normally encountered on the guns because the wood has little room to expand and contract with changing levels of temperature and humidity. The scallop stock varieties are the most at risk for this phenomenon.

Everyone who owns any variety of the model 24 should take the buttplate off and back the stock screw off just slightly to reduce the tension and relieve the stress on the wood. This will keep these cracks from forming on guns that don't already have them or keep cracks from continuing on the ones that do.