Rifle stocks.....laminated

[Brad Hammond]

can anyone pass on any tips they've learned about building a laminated rifle stock? lamination thickness and such.
i just got one of the .17cals ( savage 93r17gv) and i was interested in tinkering with a custom stock with a thumb hole and such.

thanx
brad

[David Rose]

Brad, I've only done one from scratch. It was walnut/maple and if memory serves, it was a few years ago, the layers were about 1/10th inch thick. I just looked at a factory stock on the wall and duplicated them approximately. I don't have a vacuum press and wasn't even in furniture work at that time. I did make up some patterns and cut most of the inletting and some of the outside shaping in each layer. Glue up to keep alignment was a little tough. :( If I did it again, I would definitely do some of the inletting but leave the forearm flat on the bottom to help with alignment. I used Acraglas as adhesive and thinned some as a base for the finish. You probably know, but the factory ones are mostly pressure soaked with epoxy. Some are not even finished allowing the epoxy to be polished. Most have some finish today though. The one I built was lighter than most factory and easier to dent as the adhesive was not as well impregnated. But it worked and the customer liked it and I had waaaaay too much time in it. :D

Have you done much action/barrel inletting? I have thought about building some sort of router duplicator to do a stock here and there that is not in production. I don't know how precise they would be though. I can't afford to leave a lot of handwork on most of these. And bad inletting is a bad stock.

Have fun and let us know how it comes out. :)

David


can anyone pass on any tips they've learned about building a laminated rifle stock? lamination thickness and such.
i just got one of the .17cals ( savage 93r17gv) and i was interested in tinkering with a custom stock with a thumb hole and such.

thanx
brad

[Bob Smalser]

Have done dozens of them as an Army target rifle smith. Veneer thickness depends on species...look in your USDA wood encyclopedia for seasonal movement...the more stable the wood the thicker the lamination can be.

But having given you the stock answer, with today's modern epoxies like West System or Acraglass, this isn't as critical as in the days of more-brittle recorcinol.

As was said, you can build some preliminary inletting into the laminations...but leave everything on the bottom flat for indexing plumb inletting. My personal preference is cherry and walnut stained with Easyoff Oven Cleaner.

Send me an email and I'll send you a large collection of papers I wrote for the Army and others on gunsmithing topics rarely found in books.

[Brad Hammond]

[QUOTE=

Send me an email and I'll send you a large collection of papers I wrote for the Army and others on gunsmithing topics rarely found in books.[/QUOTE]

thanx bob and david!
bob you'll have incoming email............THANX!

this will be my first attempt at a rifle stock and i'm not picky about the finish because i'll paint it with some krylon camo anyway. i'll just want some kind of matte top coat to protect the camo.
i've bedded a couple of my other ruger 10/22's. didnt have to bed my .223 savage.........it is the LE model and came VERY accurate. my needs are mainly to have a floated barrel and solid bedding and mabye a thumb hole for a pistol grip style.
i think i'll probably toy with some forms of mdf or birch for practice.
you guys have been a great help!
thanx
brad

[Bob Smalser]

Lotsa ways to do it well....but your best bet will be to bed only the rear face of the locking lug, the remaining action and mag group and the first 2" of the barrel.

Black elec tape works fine to place and trim with an X-Acto knife around the lug for clearance later when it's removed.

Use lotsa paste wax as a release agent...the Brownell's stuff is expensive and doesn't work any better.

If you glue metal to wood...don't forget modeling clay in the action holes before coating with release agent...it's no big deal...110 degrees of propane heat to the metal and a rubber mallet will release a stuck action right quick, often with the bedding salvageable, too.