Bakal 18 Break action stock manufacturing tips

WilliamM

WilliamM

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This is more of a curiosity than anything, I have a Bakal Single shot break action laying around, and I wanted to try my hand at making a stock and forend for it. As a novice, I am wondering what flavour of wood would be good to learn to make my own stock. I have a fully furnished one that I was planning on tracing out the existing one for getting the shape. I am unsure where I should start.
I only want to take on this project because I bought a 2nd one only for the wood (cannibalized wood for a sentimental project) so the metal is laying around, and I wanted to do something with it and not throw it in the metal bin. Its the (Russian lettering) 18. It'll be a first attempt at this sort of thing so I am looking for a starting point. Any advice from you wood workers would be tremendously helpful.
 
Assuming you are a novice woodworker (possibly incorrect), I would say make a first attempt using construction lumber (2x4, 2x6, etc.) laminated to get whatever thickness you need. It won't be a functional stock, but it is the cheapest practice you will ever get and that takes the pressure off to be perfect out of the gate. If you want to use something nicer than SPF lumber for practice, poplar is easy to work and pretty cheap as hardwoods go.

When you've hacked that one roughly to what you want then you can try on a decent piece of wood. Depending on your aesthetic tastes, laminated birch plywood makes an excellent stock and can be stained/finished in many ways. The birch ply is pretty affordable and easy to work with. For a commercial comparison, Boyds stocks are made with laminated wood similar to the birch ply.

If you want real hardwood, then that starts to cost $$. Lots of woods will make a decent stock. Walnut is traditional, but maple, birch and others have all been used over time. Diffuse-porous woods are better than ring-porous. Ring-porous woods are ones like oak and ash, where there is a pronounced ring of very open grain alternating with solid wood. They look nice and either oak or ash are hard/strong enough, but the open rings are usually soft and crumbly so they won't carry a load well and are a PITA to fill and seal while finishing.

You want pretty straight grain in the butt, especially through the wrist area, to carry recoil forces. The forearm can be fancier as it doesn't do much besides give your off hand a place to hang onto.


Mark
 
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Your best place to start is watching videos on YouTube. Then deciding what kind of wood you want to use. Walnut is the best choice for hand tools in my opinion. Good luck
 
Longrange300wm said:
If you need a replacement stock, let me know.
I think I have one in my basement.
I broke firing pin on a 223 and junked it.
Not looking for sale, just wanna help out.


Cheers
Click to expand...
Not a replacement stock per se.
I bought a 2nd gun for the wood to put onto an identical shotgun (turns out its cheaper to buy one of those guns and steal the stock than it is to order replacement wood for one). So I have the steel sitting in my garage and wanted to try my hand at making a stock for it. Otherwise it's useless steel.
 
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