https://imgur.com/a/A9E0bvr

I picked up this stock from Steyr early last year (and a couple days after I bought it they removed these stocks from their online store) and after 500-700 rounds I noticed this. Is this a crack? For some reason I just assumed the cracking issue wouldn’t be a thing for non A3M1 stocks but apparently I am wrong.

Anyone have any leads on semi auto A1/A2 stocks (not the surplus full auto ones) so I can replace this? They are stupidly hard to find and of course Steyr is no help. Worse case scenario I can sand down and dye my USR stock but I’d rather not permanently modify that.

Looks more like a gouge

Yes Sir it is a gouge.

It appears to look like a gouge to me too. But, is the stock recently manufactured?

That is a gouge but it is a hell of a place for it.

My new (2024) Black AUG has a very similar "scratch" except mine is on the left side of the take-down bolt cutout coming off the upper left corner going towards the ejection port. I first thought it was a crack. I guess whoever is radiusing the corners in the square or installing the take-down bolt had too much coffee. I bet they will get some stocks returned by people paranoid about all the cracking stocks.

Reminds me of a Cold 6920 I bought at Walmart back around 2009. Every f*cking rifle had a bad scratch next to the rear take-down pin. I kept asking the clerk if I could please see another rifle hoping to find one not gouged. They had to go in the store room to get more but no luck and I finally picked one that had the lightest gouge. The clerk probably thought I was nuts. Probably some monkey at the Colt factory was doing final checks or whatever and was using a screwdriver or similar monkey-took to push the pin in and save their thumbs. Doing it as fast as possible and gouged every Rifle in the same spot

I’m just gonna keep shooting it and if anything happens then it happens. If it’s just a gouge I don’t care, it’s rifle that gets used and I expect it to show signs of use the more I use it, I just don’t want it to suffer the fate of current A3 stocks.

There’s a black A1 stock (with black grip, black A1 charging handle, and in the pics there’s a bolt carrier in the stock so I’m assuming bolt carrier and most likely bolt too) on gunbroker right now that was supposed to end in like ten minutes that I’ve been watching and it’s currently at $470 and still climbing. I’m not paying that for just the stock that I want (don’t need any spare grips or charging handles or bolts/carriers) when I got this stock directly from Steyr for like $175 or something. If this stock cracks it cracks. I haven’t seen any non A3 stocks crack so this will be the first I’ve seen if it happens.