Varmint contour barrel in a regular stock
- Thread starter swtp
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To my eye it looks somewhat odd, but if done well it's ok. I've built a few that ended up this way. - dan
Easy enough to do yourself, with a bit of sandpaper and working at a leisurely pace and checking progress regularly. Did it a number of months back with a Boyds laminate stock for a medium/heavy barrelled Savage - cut your sandpaper to size and wrap lengths around an appropriately sized deep socket, run up and down the barrel channel...
Might take an hour to do, but is a fairly simple job. Sure, you could do it faster with fancy gun smithing tools or power tools.
Might take an hour to do, but is a fairly simple job. Sure, you could do it faster with fancy gun smithing tools or power tools.
Power tools might make a big mess of things. I floated the barrel in the factory stock using the method you described and it turned out ok, but not great. I also tried bedding the action and bottom metal as well as pouring in pillars. Same thing, ok but not great. Still shoots well so I will wait for a used varmint stock. Thanks for the advice
I actually just did one.
I just rebarreled another mod 7 Remington to 22-250. I seem to be on a roll with them right now.
I picked up a lovely Model 7 CDL Walnut stock in Kamloops last spring and it was sitting around waiting to go onto a build.
The barrel channel needed to be opened up for the Varmint profile barrel.
I used the Brownelles barrel channel inletting tools I have on hand as well as a home made tool, specifically made to take a one inch cylindrical block of wrapped, 100 grit cloth abrasive. Took about a half hour to rough it out with the inletting tools and another hour to fit the barreled action into the stock. The big issue was with the black polymer fore end tip, which causes the grit to clog.
I also used a wrapped cylindrical block on a flexible shaft, made from a honing tool. It allows sufficient pressure to be applied when using such devices to open up a channel, so the abrassive block won't climb up the edge, causing unsightly gouges or uneven edges. I chucked it up into a battery operated hand drill at its lowest speed. Did a nice job, a lot faster than I could do by hand.
Guntech suggests free floating the barrel. In most cases I would agree with that. In this case, I left about six pounds of pressure at the tip of the stock against the barrel. Sometimes it helps with accuracy and sometimes it doesn't. If not, it's easily removed.
I actually like the look of the rifle in the CDL sporting profile stock. It's gong to be a dream to carry as I won't be using a bipod with it.
I just rebarreled another mod 7 Remington to 22-250. I seem to be on a roll with them right now.
I picked up a lovely Model 7 CDL Walnut stock in Kamloops last spring and it was sitting around waiting to go onto a build.
The barrel channel needed to be opened up for the Varmint profile barrel.
I used the Brownelles barrel channel inletting tools I have on hand as well as a home made tool, specifically made to take a one inch cylindrical block of wrapped, 100 grit cloth abrasive. Took about a half hour to rough it out with the inletting tools and another hour to fit the barreled action into the stock. The big issue was with the black polymer fore end tip, which causes the grit to clog.
I also used a wrapped cylindrical block on a flexible shaft, made from a honing tool. It allows sufficient pressure to be applied when using such devices to open up a channel, so the abrassive block won't climb up the edge, causing unsightly gouges or uneven edges. I chucked it up into a battery operated hand drill at its lowest speed. Did a nice job, a lot faster than I could do by hand.
Guntech suggests free floating the barrel. In most cases I would agree with that. In this case, I left about six pounds of pressure at the tip of the stock against the barrel. Sometimes it helps with accuracy and sometimes it doesn't. If not, it's easily removed.
I actually like the look of the rifle in the CDL sporting profile stock. It's gong to be a dream to carry as I won't be using a bipod with it.
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The deep socket with some duct tape wrapped around full width once or twice so it overlaps and sticky side out.
The sand paper should butt to or almost to but no overlap. Any overlap will have a loose flap that cuts one side of the channel.
Connect everything to an extended shaft on your drill and set to the lowest speed until you are comfortable to increasing the speed.
Did this with a CZ452 Varmint and that Turkish walnut is harder than the hubs of hell. I had a flap when I started so made a modification as described.
The closer the diameter is to the diameter of the barrel the better.
The sand paper should butt to or almost to but no overlap. Any overlap will have a loose flap that cuts one side of the channel.
Connect everything to an extended shaft on your drill and set to the lowest speed until you are comfortable to increasing the speed.
Did this with a CZ452 Varmint and that Turkish walnut is harder than the hubs of hell. I had a flap when I started so made a modification as described.
The closer the diameter is to the diameter of the barrel the better.
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When I built a couple stocks a few years back and opened others, I used a piece of wood dowel around which was wrapped sandpaper. Use a dowel that is slightly smaller diameter (.050"... you can tape it up to increase thickness on small one if you cannot make one of correct size) than the barrel at the tip of the stock... the sandpaper makes up the rest and with a bit more past constitutes the free float space. Have at it with 60-80grit but leave some wood to finish it off with finer grits to desired dimension and how smooth you want it to be. Most factory finishes are not very smooth so if you don't care, you can skip the fine grit smooth sanding step. Sanding around the chamber area obviously is a larger diameter but you are limited to what you can fit so keep using the dowel and with the sandpaper at the dowel tip, sand out the wider relief... naturally you should be trying the barrel frequently to avoid sanding unevenly or excessively.
RJ
if you end up taking too much meat out of the barrel channel in particular under the barrel, work to keep the gaps along the sides of the barrel even and as straight as you can. whats under the barrel, well you can clean that and make it look pretty with acraglass or other bedding material. bed the action and the chamber area of the barrel, float out the rest and you can still have a fine looking and fine shooting rifle. Plus if the stock is wood, you just made things like moisture, humidity or temperature less likely to impact the stock and its ability to shift and create pressure points on the barrel, changing your point of impact.
I’ve opened both wood and plastic stocks, I just scribed lines and followed with a dowel and sand paper.
The lines are straight and the stocks look great!
The key to success, like anything is to take your time. If you feel rushed, just walk away for another day.
Never use anything powered if sanding the finishing lines, but to take some bulk material out it’s just fine.
Sand little and check often!
The lines are straight and the stocks look great!
The key to success, like anything is to take your time. If you feel rushed, just walk away for another day.
Never use anything powered if sanding the finishing lines, but to take some bulk material out it’s just fine.
Sand little and check often!
Thats good advice. - dan
