Judging by the quality of the rest of the work, I'd say the original builder had enough experience to know better than to remove all that wood. My guess would be that someone at a later date removed a bunch of wood to put in an aftermarket trigger. This weakened the stock and facilitated the crack. I think I would be tempted to put some wood back in, maybe even with a crossbolt, then re-inlet for the trigger. Even with that, it probably is not going to be a rifle that you would want to shot a lot, at least not with heavy recoiling loads.
John
