Thread: New lightweight stock

As everyone else already figured out, the hogue stock that came with my rifle was really floppy and heavy.
I'd always sort of planned to build one myself, so this was a good excuse to start experimenting.

This project is already 3/4 through, so forgive me if my recollection of the process is a little bit piecemeal.

The first job was bedding & stiffening the hogue, which made a dramatic improvement, particularly to shooting from a bipod.
Heavy though:


Over a kilo, and pretty ugly. And plastic. And common.

I started with modelling up the action I had, then converted this into a cutting volume - a digital plug I could subtract from any stock design to fit the howa metal:


This keeps the stock design separate from the action, and means I can tweak the action cutter throughout the prototyping without affecting the stock, and vice-versa. It also means I can theoretically make up another for a different action, and drop it into the same stock design.

This is the oldest concept I can find:


The important bit of this design was to split the stock in half. I originally looked at carbon fibre, but rapidly ruled it out due to it being a massive dick to work with, and difficult (and expensive) to make progressive changes.

Splitting the stock in half, has a couple of huge advantages:

1. The inletting can be machined in one hit from the inside
2. It can be hollowed out, and made significantly lighter

I dropped the idea of the carbon fibre foreend pretty quick, but the idea was that it could be a single cavity mold.

Redesigned the process & stock to remove all the dicking around difficult, expensive materials:


Ultimately this means some expensive, difficult dicking around with a CNC, due to having to re-datum the material once you've flipped it over. Nothing wildly challenging though.

I also started getting too excited at this stage about how it would look if I spent another thousand bucks on rifle accessories too:


You can see here the lattice structure I looked at for the butt. This area represents the largest unnecessary volume of wood on a traditional stock - though many are bored out, there's still a heap of material that doesn't need to be there. If you look at the area through the pistol grip, this is the most narrow part (and most common failure part) in the majority of rifle stocks, so all that extra mass does nothing.

Similarly the forend doesn't need to be super solid, as it really only serves as a resting surface or bipod & sling attachment point (when you have a floated barrel).

That was my thinking anyway, so I pressed on with making up some plywood blanks for the first prototype. It proved remarkably difficult to find a competent CNC routing guy who could work with 3d files, but eventually it got underway:

Great CAD skills! Be interesting what the weight is? Have you multiplied its volume by the weight of the wood to estimate it?

Kj

The weight of this 1st prototype is about 2/3 that of a full wooden number (by volume), if I recall correctly. Putting this one on the scale is right about 500g (with recoil pad, pillars & new trigger guard)


There were a number of issues with this design, some which were expected, some not:

• I got the palm swell bit really wrong - this required a fair bit of filing & adjustment. Unfortunately this resulted in breaking into the internal void - not a huge issue, as the inside is sealed before the halves were glued together.
• The foreend was REALLY hollow - fine as far as deflection & stiffness, but it had the result of resonating when you cycled the bolt
• I also screwed a sling stud into this, which obviously ripped out after not very long
• The LOP was a little short, so I added a big dumb heavy bit to the back
• The comb height was too low - something I reckon I should fix with the stock design, rather than the rough foam & tape solution

So, on with redesigning for the P2 prototype:

And all of this will be easy enough to mirror for lefties of course. Nice work!

It never ceases to amaze me how clever some of you buggers are. I don't for the life of me understand why you do it, but it fascinates me that you do.

Originally Posted by Tommy

And all of this will be easy enough to mirror for lefties of course. Nice work!

Yeah, that's a nice thing about the process - it should be easy peasy to mirror for lefties, or different actions.

Equally, different geometries like LOP, comb height etc should be fairly straightforward to change

Originally Posted by Rushy

It never ceases to amaze me how clever some of you buggers are. I don't for the life of me understand why you do it, but it fascinates me that you do.

+1.
Just finished saying something similar to the wife (not that she cared) before reading this

Originally Posted by chalkeye

The weight of this 1st prototype is about 2/3 that of a full wooden number (by volume), if I recall correctly. Putting this one on the scale is right about 500g (with recoil pad, pillars & new trigger guard)


There were a number of issues with this design, some which were expected, some not:

• I got the palm swell bit really wrong - this required a fair bit of filing & adjustment. Unfortunately this resulted in breaking into the internal void - not a huge issue, as the inside is sealed before the halves were glued together.
• The foreend was REALLY hollow - fine as far as deflection & stiffness, but it had the result of resonating when you cycled the bolt
• I also screwed a sling stud into this, which obviously ripped out after not very long
• The LOP was a little short, so I added a big dumb heavy bit to the back
• The comb height was too low - something I reckon I should fix with the stock design, rather than the rough foam & tape solution

So, on with redesigning for the P2 prototype:

Let me know when you have made one for a rem model 7




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

What CAD program did you use?
Well done, VERY clever indeed.

Solid Works.

Yep, modelled in SolidWorks, all the rendering is done in Blender though.

another one of those pretty bloody awesome talents that inhabit this forum.keep up the good work is inspiring!!

That is awesome @chalkeye well done mate