Now the next set of photos show the stock after you take it out of the bag.  My first impression was that it is a solid piece of hardware.  There are no parts that rattle and it has a good look and finish.

Since this stock is a drop-in replacement that will fit both mil-spec and commercial buffer tubes, all I needed to do was remove my old stock and slide this one on my commercial buffer tube.  This is where I ran into an issue.  It seems that my commercial buffer tube was on the high side of the tolerance band and this was causing a tube/stock fit that was clearly too tight.

For those of you who are not familiar with the differences between a mil-spec and commercial buffer tube, a mil-spec buffer tube outside diameter should be between 1.145" to 1.150" and a commercial buffer tube outside diameter should be between 1.163" and 1.173".  You can see a good comparison of these two by checking out this link and viewing a comparison diagram.  The GL-SHOCK stock is designed to fit both, with the tighter fit being on a commercial tube.

I contacted Mako and was able to provide my information to their engineering department.  Mako engineering then did a thorough investigation and decided to tweak their mold to allow a better fit for commercial buffer tubes which seem to be coming in on the high side of the tolerance band.  Their investigation also revealed that most of these types of tubes were imported and that they had not run across this issue on any US made commercial buffer tubes.  If for some reason your commercial buffer tube and GL-SHOCK is too tight similar to my situation, you should contact Mako and they should be able to swap your product with an updated version.  Mako is sending me a new stock so that I can evaluate the fit against my larger buffer tube and also to evaluate the recoil reducing feature.  I will discuss both of these further in this review.

With my original stock now installed on my rifle, I decided to compare the different positions of the stock with reference to my old A2 stock.  The length shown for each position is shown from the edge of the lower receiver to the back top of the butt pad.

Position 1 - Length 7.75"

The first position that the charging handle does not lap over the cheek riser is Position 4 shown below.

Up until now, I have done the review with my original stock which had the tight fit.  As you may have noticed in some of the photos, there are wear marks that are being formed on my buffer tube.  Also, I applied graphite and then finally a spray silicon to reduce the friction when moving the stock into it's different positions.  The combination of surface finish wear and lubricant has greatly helped reduce the tightness of the stock. Over time they may break in like a baseball glove and produce a great fit.

After a couple of weeks, Mako sent me a new stock based on their modified mold to allow more clearance for commercial buffer tubes.  I'm very impressed with how fast Mako jumped on this issue and were able to provide a newly manufactured configuration.  There is no visible difference between the stocks, but there is clearly an increase in size of the buffer tube area to allow a much better fit for the commercial tubes.  The new stock drops on a mil-spec tube and functions nearly like any other stock when changing positions.  What I mean by nearly is that it actually functions better because Mako has integrated spring acting tabs that will press against the buffer tube to reduce any free play (rattle) which may exist.  You can see these tabs on both sides of the locking pin in the photo below.


When I put the stock on my commercial buffer tube, it still has a snug fit for my tube, but this is my preference.  It is not so tight that making adjustments takes an act of congress, but it is snug.  This will vary per buffer tube because there can be tolerance differences.  I measured my tube and it is on the high side of the tolerance band.

The next feature to evaluate is the recoil reducing feature.  Just to be clear, when I talk about this recoil reducing feature, it is in terms of "felt recoil".  Felt recoil is your perception of the recoil.  The addition of springs helps spread the recoil over a longer period of time which gives the rifle a softer feel and thus less felt recoil.  For more information on recoil, you can read this article from Wikipedia.

To evaluate the recoil reducing feature, I installed the new updated stock from Mako. I did have some doubts on it's effectiveness with my standard 55 grain (1293 ft.lbs. @ muzzle) plinking ammo and felt like I would need to shoot some heavier bullets to really feel the difference.  I ended up getting a couple of boxes of BVAC 75gr HPBT Match ammo.  This ammo has a muzzle energy of 1261 ft.lbs.  On paper, these two cartridges seem nearly identical when you compare the muzzle energy, but I know that the heavier bullet will give a slightly increase recoil based on my experience.

The big issue I had was how to really measure the reduction in recoil without it becoming just my opinion.  Since the stock recoil reducing feature is based on spring compression, I decided to try and see how much spring compression I was actually getting when I shot my rifle.  The final (cheap) way I decided to measure the spring compression was to set up some markers at different increments along the travel of the locking pin.  I setup a series of strings along the path of the locking pin.  The strings were attached by tape to the stock.

The first photo below shows the stock in the initial position (before compressing the spring).  The second photo shows what happens to the string around the pin when I compress the stock to the first horizontal string above the locking pin.  The third photo shows what happens to the strings when I press the stock to the second horizontal string.

Before                                                            After

Since I don't own a fully auto rifle (yet), I'm limited to making shots at the rate of me actually pulling the trigger.  I tested this with a couple of three round quick shots and achieved the same results.  What does all this mean for the recoil reducing feature? The bad side is that I don't think this feature will make any significant difference on a standard (not auto) .223 rifle.  The good side is that anything with more recoil than a .223 will see a real reduction in recoil (compression of the spring).  If I had a buffer tube on one of my shotguns, I would drop this in and check it out, but at this time I don't.  Based on my results, I have no doubt that this would reduce felt recoil on any larger caliber.

I would consider this stock to be in the higher end category.  When you consider the fact that it has waterproof storage and a cheek riser, and then compare the price to others on the market, I believe this stock provides a good value.  Since it is already a good value without the recoil reducing feature, I consider this feature to be a bonus.  Just because the recoil reducing feature is not very effective on a standard (not auto) .223 rifle doesn't mean it can't be swapped out in 30 seconds to a .308 rifle (AR-10 style) or shotgun which will have more recoil.