Well, I had some free time the other day, so I worked up some cartridges with my newly-shaped brass. Here you can see three different loads with a .308 and a .223 for comparison. The left load is a Hornady 286-grain softpoint, the centre load is a Prvi Partizan 285-grain round nose softpoint, and the right load is a Nosler 250-grain Accubond.
I have also finished the stock completely, including a forend tip and grip cap I fashioned from African Blackwood (a type of ebony). That stuff is really hard. I’ve used it for knife handles in the past, and it takes longer to cut through than the steel I made the blades from. I figure it’ll last longer than the rest of the stock. The stock itself is the sporter Monte-Carlo style in Tigerwood laminate from Richards Microfit, and I quite like it. I also fitted sling swivel bases and a Pachmayr Decelerator pad.
Here’s a close-up of the tip. I like how it contrasts with the light stock. You can also see the finger grooves that I ran along the full length of the forend.
I completed the main components of the tang safety and Duracoated them, so all that remains is to fit them to the safety plate of the Timney trigger. This custom safety ended up being the most labour-intensive part of the whole project, involving many hours of fitting, testing, and creative language. Here are the components apart and fitted together.
I’m going to be picking the newly-barreled action up tomorrow, so I should be able to show some more in the next week or two.
To answer a few questions, the bottom metal, as far as I can tell, is aluminum or some kind of alloy. It’s very light weight and non-magnetic, and cold bluing doesn’t work. I also hit the checkered edges with a light amount of filing, just to dull the sharp edges as Stocker suggested (thanks for the tip! It was very sharp). The bolt is for a standard (.30-06) cartridge, so my gunsmith is opening the bolt face and extractor to feed the bigger rim on the 9.3mm. Thanks for the interest guys! I admit that this has been a lot of fun to share with everyone. I love seeing other people’s projects, especially the before and after photos, so I figured others might like to see this stuff. I hope to have it all done in a couple of weeks. Cheers!
Erik.
I have also finished the stock completely, including a forend tip and grip cap I fashioned from African Blackwood (a type of ebony). That stuff is really hard. I’ve used it for knife handles in the past, and it takes longer to cut through than the steel I made the blades from. I figure it’ll last longer than the rest of the stock. The stock itself is the sporter Monte-Carlo style in Tigerwood laminate from Richards Microfit, and I quite like it. I also fitted sling swivel bases and a Pachmayr Decelerator pad.
Here’s a close-up of the tip. I like how it contrasts with the light stock. You can also see the finger grooves that I ran along the full length of the forend.
I completed the main components of the tang safety and Duracoated them, so all that remains is to fit them to the safety plate of the Timney trigger. This custom safety ended up being the most labour-intensive part of the whole project, involving many hours of fitting, testing, and creative language. Here are the components apart and fitted together.
I’m going to be picking the newly-barreled action up tomorrow, so I should be able to show some more in the next week or two.
To answer a few questions, the bottom metal, as far as I can tell, is aluminum or some kind of alloy. It’s very light weight and non-magnetic, and cold bluing doesn’t work. I also hit the checkered edges with a light amount of filing, just to dull the sharp edges as Stocker suggested (thanks for the tip! It was very sharp). The bolt is for a standard (.30-06) cartridge, so my gunsmith is opening the bolt face and extractor to feed the bigger rim on the 9.3mm. Thanks for the interest guys! I admit that this has been a lot of fun to share with everyone. I love seeing other people’s projects, especially the before and after photos, so I figured others might like to see this stuff. I hope to have it all done in a couple of weeks. Cheers!
Erik.
