Thread: Walnut Stock Build

I wasn’t going to make this thread until I was a bit further along, however perhaps with the current lockdown now’s a good time. I know I appreciate reading similar threads created by other members – they help keep your thoughts off the hunting most of us wish we were doing at the moment.

Anyway, I’ll post up to where I’m currently at. After that updates will be a lot slower – even with the lockdown I still have plenty of demands on my time from work, a young family etc. Also, in my own time I prefer to work slowly and carefully – a luxury I don’t always get in work hours. Bear in mind too that I’m only a hobby machinist and this is the first time I’ve attempted to make a stock. Some might say I tend to do things the hard way.

The pictures should tell most of the story, but comments and questions welcome.

Step 1 – start with an old, large (~1m diameter trunk) English Walnut that’s shortly about to kick the bucket from natural causes anyway. This was back in 2010:



Step 2 - fell:







Step 3 - mill:







Step 4 - stack, store and wait:



More to come...

Wow that is delicious

Nice

That timber looks amazing. Can't wait to see the stock you make from it. I have spent the last 5 days hacking a stock for a hunting rifle out of a lump of ash I had lying around, nice strong timber, but butt ugly at best.

Damn that's a beautiful piece of wood.

Thanks for the responses all.
So looking through the gun cabinet my Anschutz 1717 .17hmr was chosen as the restocking victim candidate. I thought I had a picture of it in the original stock but can’t find it at the moment, so rather than reassemble it for a photo here’s an example I borrowed from the net. Being the silhouette version it’s got the 2-stage trigger and shortened barrel as per the picture, but the magazine is a bit longer (the picture is a .22lr 1712). Stock is just like the photo – comfortable but not exactly elegant to my eyes, and made from straight grain stained walnut with very little figure.

Anyway, I’ll come back to the stock. There were a few mods to the steelwork first. This is a nice rifle; very accurate, but actually with a couple of issues you might not expect for the money they ask for one of these.
First up, when I received the rifle it misfired about 40% of the time and accuracy was poor. This was probably why the seller offered it for so cheap (not that he put that little detail on his auction). A little google searching told me that this was a common problem on the magnum side-safety versions, with the solution being aftermarket firing pin springs. US$23 spring set later and it was sorted – 100% ignition and immediately better accuracy.

Problem #2 was that the side safety was very stiff to operate. I relocated one leg of the tensioning spring – problem solved.

#3 was more involved. While feeding of rounds loaded with polymer-tipped (vmax) bullets was fine, when using hollow-point TNT rounds the top round would hang up on the breech face. The solution was supposed to be the improved 2nd or 3rd gen magazine. I bought a 3rd gen magazine (not cheap!) and it was worse. Now I don’t like to let things like this beat me, and when I looked closely I figured the best way to correct the problem was not with the magazine but with the housing – presenting the magazine up to the bolt at a slightly different angle. Solution was to replace it. Only thing I kept from the assembly was the spring.








Feeding now 100% with both mags and both bullet types.
There’s been a couple more tweaks here and there – grinding the safety lever under the stock line and reshaping the action tang (I’ll come back to that next post). Still on the list are a new trigger blade and a teardrop bolt handle.

Looks like a Peterson mill there


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Originally Posted by MSL

Looks like a Peterson mill there


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Yep, I think it was. Only used for the first couple of passes though - the bulk of the trunk was slabbed with the chainsaw setup. Some of the smaller branches done with a Woodmizer bandsaw mill, and I seem to remember a larger bandsaw mill being used for the bigger branch forks. All the milling was done by Rarefind Timbers out of Hamilton - we just stood there to dictate the cuts and help shift timber.

Nice work on the mag housing! I cut down an old walnut tree in the 1970's and chainsawed it into slabs which I stacked and air dryed for several years. I made several stocks over the years for various customers and have one blank left that I will use for a classic English sporter at some stage. Patience is definitely your friend when stockmaking!

Good looking wood.
I suspect that you know most wood for gun stocks is aged around 7/15 years. So 10 sounds about right! Looking forward to seeing the blank before you start and how it comes out.

I am quite amazed at what beautiful timber came out of such an ordinary rough firewood looking log. Diamonds on the inside and all that, certainly the opposite of ' beauty is only skin deep'.
Great job on the machining too.
If the original stock will accept an EM332 I am interested, but I guess that wont happen for a while

Big trees are beautiful ..in life..and death

Originally Posted by Moa Hunter

If the original stock will accept an EM332 I am interested, but I guess that wont happen for a while

What would you need to know whether it fits an EM332? I don't have one of those, but I could send you inlet photos and dimensions if you're keen. I expect it'll depend on how much modification you're willing to do...

Originally Posted by gundoc

Nice work on the mag housing! I cut down an old walnut tree in the 1970's and chainsawed it into slabs which I stacked and air dryed for several years. I made several stocks over the years for various customers and have one blank left that I will use for a classic English sporter at some stage. Patience is definitely your friend when stockmaking!

Thanks. If you create a thread when you build that, it's definitely one I'll be following.

Flaming heck ,"I`m only a hobby machinist"` , Hell lad you could build your self a muzzle loading rifle no sweat. Can't wait to see the new rifle stock from the lovely stock pile of wood.