Homemade custom bolt knob for hunting rifle!

H

huntingfish

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Howdy! I wasn't sure in which forum to post this in...hope I made the right choice.

I'm in the process of rejuvinating my hunting rifle, m96 in 30-06 from TradeEx, (limbsaver buttpad, installed an african blackwood tip, made the profile a bit slimer and going to be refinishing the stock as well) and I figured...might as well make use of my wood lathe. I had a plastic winter knob and I didn't fancy it that much anymore. So I turned a bolt knob made out of bloodwood ("blood"wood seemed appropriate for a hunting rifle ;-).

Let me know what y'all think!

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Fish
 
Stevebot-7 said:
Classy. How's the grip on it, it looks very glossy.
Click to expand...

The finish is actually something that wood turners use on small turning projects that are going to be handled a lot (pens) or which will be in very harsh conditions (game calls):

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It's called a CA finish, from the type of the glue used to make the finish: It's basically just putting crazy glue over the wood! You sand from 120 -:bigHug:> 600 grit, then apply several coats of CA glue. Once applied, you wet sand the bejesus out of it using 1000 then 2000 grit. Followed by a quick buffing and voila: You'll be able to see mooses trying to sneak up behind you from their reflection on the bolt knob! hehe Another great thing about this finish is that you can apply it even on those pesky (but gorgeous!) oily african woods (bloodwood, african blackwood, cocobolo, etc). Since those woods are oily, you can forget about using a water based finish on them and since they are already saturated with oils, it's hard to make an oil based finish to take (you have to rub with acetone first, seal it with dewaxed shellac, etc).

I favored this finish because it's nearly impervious to the elements as well as chemicals (such a DEET, which will eat out just about any other finish such as poly or varnish).

The bolt cycles great and is not slippery at all. Maybe it's because the surface is perfectly flat (I mean, no micro grooves or anything) that it actually creates a bunch of friction (I vaguely remember something like that from my physics classes). But who knows! The biggest deal for me is that I'm used to a winter knob (which is a huge ball about 1 1/4" in diameter) and this is much more streamlined.

I was actually considering making a few and selling them on the EE maybe. It would help me a lot if people could tell what size threading they have on their bolt knobs. Would anyone be interested in such a thing?

Fish
 
I think you could do well selling some of these on the EE.

I don't have anything to put it on, myself, but I think lots of people would like one.
 
looks great..can you post a pic of the whole rifle? question..how deep into the handle does the bolt handle go? Any concerns about the wood cracking with use?
 
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