what should i do!!!!! stock options

gunner1911

gunner1911

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i bought a barreled action that is tan and want to build my own custom wood stock for it. (i do have woodworking experience so i should be able to make it somewhat pretty :p)
my conflict is what wood should i use? since its not that big of a chunk of wood, money wont be an issue. what would look best with a tan barrel? its bugging me!!! it hasnt arrived yet but today i made the mistake of walkking into a woodshop that has a ton of options... so far im thinking birch, cherry, ash, aspen, mahogany, white oak, red oak, eastern hard maple, to start the list... if you have AAAANY advice on which is best or if you have a better one, pleeeese tell me. it would help so much! thanks!
 
How about Zebra wood? The black makes a nice contrast to tan and the whitish part is actually tan so it might look good.
Or how about black walnut, which is a really dark brown wood? Please let us see the finished product.:wave:
 
From what I've read about zebra wood so far it's not really something that would hold up to recoil for very long... Since I haven't made a stock before I'm probably going to make one out of a 2x8 first to prove to myself I can do it and I'll look into a dark wood. Thanks for the input!!
 
Some variety of walnut or maple would be the most suitable for making gunstocks. Oak is too open-grained. I'm having a hard time picturing walking in to a lumber yard and coming away with a piece of wood suitable for a stock blank though.


gunner1911 said:
since its not that big of a chunk of wood, money wont be an issue.
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You can spend multiple thousands of dollars on a top quality piece of Circassian walnut ( Juglans Regia)
 
You need to take into account what you are intending to do with the finished/assembled rifle. Birch is great but it's heavy. Oak splits easily and gets brittle. Cherry, Ash and Aspen are just to soft and even when dry will warp. Eastern Hard Maple is great to work with and can have some very nice figure but is heavy like Birch. Walnut comes in different colors and IMHO is the best of all the wood mentioned so far.

The best stocks have been slow cured for years, up to 20+ and can have some incredible figure. They are also very pricey. Thousands of dollars pricey.

If I may suggest there are stock makers in Canada that offer up some fine stocks that are 95% finished and inletted for just about any barreled action. In the US there is always Boyd's Gun Stocks for the lower end pricing but still properly cured stocks in various grades.

Just going to the lumber store for wood may not give you what you need to do an acceptable job. Way more to this than just picking up a piece of wood and carving away everything that doesn't look like a stock.
 
I'm looking for a project over the Christmas break. If it breaks than I'll look into the 95% stocks. I know how much work is involved; I've done a fair bit of research already and I have most of the equipment I'll need... The experience alone would be worth it
 
Suther said:
What is one of these worth?
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About 2ish years ago I bought one for $40, but the shipping was close to $50 I think.

It was good to work with. Rough cut on the band saw, go nuts with a belt sander, then fine carving and sanding. The nice thing about the blank is its big and you end up with enough leftovers to practice with and make matching stuff (knives, pens, bullet trays, key chains, whatever)

Can't find a pic of the original blank, but you can see them on boyds site.






 
I have some Black Walnut that I bought from Windsor Plywood, that was a full 2 inches by 12 inches dimension. Wasn't super cheap, but it wasn't paying the down payment on a yacht either. You can fit a decent basic stock into 2 inch lumber, but you have to be very careful. You also have to not wish to build great bloody huge swells all over it, but I'll leave that to your tastes to decide.

I think you are on the right track with starting out playing with whatever is cheapest off the wood pile, and working out what shapes and sizes suit you.

I can suggest that like as not, 2x4 and 2x6 lumber will make a damn fine stock shaped obect with which to sort out what you need to know, then you trace it, or send it to a duplicator (or make one) and save on wrecking the good stuff.

Aside from Boyds, I would also check out CaliCo stock blanks. Their prices are really pretty good, they have a good selection of grades of wood to choose from. and I have been told that they cut pretty close, so you need to be careful with the layout again....But that info was iven me in reference to use of a duplicator, so it may or may not bother you. They also used to stock rejects and flawed roughed out blanks from Weatherby production, that were rough cut to shape and not inletted. Cheap as chips. Dunno if they are still in business, but worth a look, I think.

There is a list of walnut suppliers on the Martini-Henry site, and you could do worse than to look at that. Look on the links page and scroll down to wood suppliers.

If you have a planer or surfacer, you could laminate your own blank up. No limits to the options there.

Somewhere about the web, I recall a thread that showed a fellow's work of building a stock on the tailgate of his truck. He was living in an RV, traveling a lot, and had no power tools other than an electric hand drill. He showed how he laid out his lines with a LOT of really good photos. Damned if I can find it right now, though. Maybe someone else's Google-fu is stronger today...

Cheers
Trev
 
First all make sure the wood is dry & aged - most serious warpage will be gone. As you are a first timer I would strongly recommend a pre-turned and in-letted stock.
This is not in way mean't to demean your "wood working skills" but stock work is a bit "complicated" it's not all saw and plane - but to each his own.
Choices of wood by my preference - thin shelled walnut eg. English etc. - black walnut - maple - cherry - mahogany - never oak / laminate, at least not for me.
**** In all cases insure the grain flows through the pistol grip not across and the wood in the fore-end is straight in all linear directions. FWIW --- John
 
Yes Trev, I remember also, I'm sure his name was Les Brooks on Nitroexpress / Accurate Reloading, I'll try and find it. --- John
 
A hearty DITTO! to the idea of doing a first run on some cheap house building wood to work out the processes and motions first. It'll also allow you to iron out things like the size of the wrist and any pistol grip sizing and spacing along with setting the cheek height to suit your sights or scope use. For a one off which has to be right the first time around it's well worth the time and the $3 worth of wood.

I've done a bit of work with zebrawood and it's not that soft at all. I'd class it in the same range as a softer walnut but not quite as hard as black walnut that I've worked with. So perhaps a little more area for a recoil lug to sit against or possibly an inletted hard maple pad for the recoil lug to seat against. But if you like the look of zebrawood it's more than usable.

Maple is far too heavy for a carry around gun unless you make it quite slender. Oak is tough but heavy and can often be rather brittle. As in if you accidentally drop it and even if it's in a sleeve it might just shatter at the wrist sort of brittle depending on how deeply the wrist is shaped. Mahogany, the real stuff and not the luan from the Phillipines, is pretty good but the grain tends to be rather "meh.... " in some cases. But if you can get it with a nice ribbon texture it CAN look positively electrified when the light hits from various angles. But if you find such a piece it's a bugger to cut with anything but rasps, files, scrapers or sandpaper. Any use of planes or spokeshaves will produce lots of tear out since each ribbon band has the grain running at a different angle so NO direction is good for planes. It also responds best to sharp scrappers for the final finish to best bring out the brilliance in the ribbon pattern. Using most sandpapers on it results in greatly dulling the magic down.
 
Search for my old post, I made quite a few wood stocks and I have some posts with detailed pictures of how I do it. Inlet the action completely first, then bedding, then carve the shape, sand and finish.

Hope this helps
 
trevj said:
I have some Black Walnut that I bought from Windsor Plywood, that was a full 2 inches by 12 inches dimension. Wasn't super cheap, but it wasn't paying the down payment on a yacht either. You can fit a decent basic stock into 2 inch lumber, but you have to be very careful. You also have to not wish to build great bloody huge swells all over it, but I'll leave that to your tastes to decide.

I think you are on the right track with starting out playing with whatever is cheapest off the wood pile, and working out what shapes and sizes suit you.

I can suggest that like as not, 2x4 and 2x6 lumber will make a damn fine stock shaped obect with which to sort out what you need to know, then you trace it, or send it to a duplicator (or make one) and save on wrecking the good stuff.

Aside from Boyds, I would also check out CaliCo stock blanks. Their prices are really pretty good, they have a good selection of grades of wood to choose from. and I have been told that they cut pretty close, so you need to be careful with the layout again....But that info was iven me in reference to use of a duplicator, so it may or may not bother you. They also used to stock rejects and flawed roughed out blanks from Weatherby production, that were rough cut to shape and not inletted. Cheap as chips. Dunno if they are still in business, but worth a look, I think.

There is a list of walnut suppliers on the Martini-Henry site, and you could do worse than to look at that. Look on the links page and scroll down to wood suppliers.

If you have a planer or surfacer, you could laminate your own blank up. No limits to the options there.

Somewhere about the web, I recall a thread that showed a fellow's work of building a stock on the tailgate of his truck. He was living in an RV, traveling a lot, and had no power tools other than an electric hand drill. He showed how he laid out his lines with a LOT of really good photos. Damned if I can find it right now, though. Maybe someone else's Google-fu is stronger today...

Cheers
Trev
Click to expand...

thanks! thats a lot of good suggestions. im a framer so theres no end to the free lumber to test ideas on :p
i was talking to the guy at windsor plywood today and hes got me looking into bubinga and paduk. both exotic african woods, and they are beautiful!! i just out if they can take the recoil. its for a 243 so im not terribly worried.
 
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