Thread: Walnut Stock Build

So some of the changes I made to the stock at this point were to reduce LOP by ¼”, flatten off the palm swell slightly, and deepen and extend the comb fluting. All easily done. But I also couldn’t shake the feeling that the pistol grip was just a bit thick (as seen in the profile view) at the upper end. Unfortunately to drop this top line downwards would have introduced the humpback look you can see on the original Anschutz stock, due to the shallow angle of the tang. I didn’t like that idea much. In fact the more I looked at the pattern stock the less I liked the top line being convex at all - it would be more graceful if it was flat or concave. The only solution seemed to be to modify the tang.
These Anschutz actions are case-hardened, so off to the poor-man’s surface grinder (cup wheel in my mill-drill). I made up a spindle to fit the wheel into an existing collet chuck, trued the wheel with a diamond dresser and setup dust extraction to pull any abrasive grit away from the mill table. Given that it was the first time I’d tried this setup I think it worked quite well:





This is the most I could steepen the tang angle while still keeping the bolt lug sufficiently engaged in the guide slot when in the rearmost position. I polished the surfaces up after grinding, but I don’t have a photo of that. I then re-contoured the stock in this area and ended up much happier with the result in both feel and appearance. Perhaps not the best photo, but you get the idea.


People are probably getting tired of seeing a piece of brown painted totara, so next post will be back to some nicely grained walnut!

One more post and this’ll be up to date with where I’m actually at. If I was writing this chronologically, there should actually be a post in between thinking the pattern stock was done and then deciding to modify it further; roughing out the walnut stock on the duplicator.







A little like cheating perhaps, but yes – I have access to a stock duplicator, and no – it’s not mine. Interesting bit of kit to steer around once you get the feel of it, and that carbide roughing mill in the router certainly strips off the wood! As far as duplicators go it’s not the most sophisticated, the better ones have linkage to keep the cutting bit vertical as it goes up and down in height whereas this just rocks forwards and backwards. I trust it to be accurate to within about a millimetre with me at the controls, which is why the inletting will still be done on the mill and by hand. But still, it’ll save me a bit of work.
I made up several tracers/stylus’s out of aluminium – you can see the largest fitted in the photo. First duplication was 12mm oversize; to get the feel of using the duplicator and so that I had a few mm to re-orientate the stock layout within the blank if the grain pattern changed once some wood had been ripped off. A couple of weeks later I went over in all again 6mm oversize. Here’s the stock at this point, next to the since-revised pattern. The heavier-than-normal grooving midway along the stock in the first photo is where I forgot to lock the spindle rotation - dammit. Lesson learned, and no harm done.







The plan was to let the oversize stock settle for a few weeks to work out any residual stress before re-mounting it for final duplication at 1.5mm oversize. When this lockdown lifts and I can get back to the duplicator that’s what I’ll do. Then onto the mill for inletting, followed by final shaping with hand tools. Sanding, finishing, bedding, checkering (outsourced), recoil pad, flush sling swivels, pistol grip cap inlay, new trigger blade, new bolt handle… plenty to keep me occupied for a long time yet.

Hope you’ve enjoyed the read. As long as people are still interested, I’ll post an update when there’s something worth updating about. Hey, with a bit of luck we might all be too busy hunting, fishing and shooting in a few weeks time to be posting on this forum anyway – but I’m not holding my breath.

coming along nicely