Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors .22 HP Take down rescue

Down the road a few fingerprints. I think the gouge work is just about done. The shape is mainly there, probably still 1/16" fat all around but getting close to metal.

Maybe I can get to 120 grit during the next session.

Fireball, when you say cheeks do you mean what I think of as the "lock plate" areas? They should be flaring to continue the action taper/flare, wider to the back. I'm considering leaving them even with the main action, just continuing the flare from there not with the step down. Reverse the cope step down in the action with a cope back to the full action width.

More dust to come.

Looking good!
I'm a big fan of the cheek rest! Looks great!!

Very nice, it’s coming along quickly. Looking forward to seeing it finished, probably not as much as you are.

Really nice, coming a long well. Showing your skills nicely. Looking forward to seeing the finished product.
Steve

Very Nice!, I very impressed with how well you judged your grain match in your laminations through the top of the wrist!

This is great! Nice lines and execution. Nice job of work.

I just would like to say I have been on here a long time and really don't post much. I guess you call that a lurker. I really appreciate all you guys and your posts! and I have gotten parts from some and appreciate those too!

Progress Pics

Sanding the butt with 180 now, close to metal everywhere. The wenge butt plate is over thick to keep the walnut honest all the way to the end. It will get slimmed to traditional thickness hard plates.You may see just behind and below the cheek piece margin the remaining divot from a deep figured grain chip that popped out during roughing gouge work. It's almost gone, thinking 180 will see the bottom of it.

Doweled and epoxied a wenge cap on the fore end piece and roughed it out. Its way too long and the barrel inletting has just gotten started. It has been shortened appropriately. The .22hp barrel is only about 18" total. Checking proportions from a number of images from similar guns from various website images.

Not pleased with the margin fit at the vertical face of action but the upper and lower tangs were decent and the screw was fitting well. Rather than redoing all the top and bottom inletting, trimmed the walnut cheeks parallel to the action and inlaid some wenge cap material on those faces.

Considering doing the rear take down metal of the fore end in wenge as well. The barrel alignment lock pin in steel screwed to the walnut surrounded by wenge where the typical metal band with a screw through is located. Function would be the same, metal to metal lock and alignment with vertical wenge trim on both ends of both pieces of walnut.
Not very traditional at all but not pink or blue or carbon fiber epoxy so maybe kind of middle of the road.

I'm working on an inletting system that should let me do the 99 action accurately and repeatably. Stay tuned for news.

FYI a couple shots from EOD 5.25

If I did it, it would look like a 2x4!!
Good work!!!!

I can really appreciate how much effort and talent You're putting in to this piece. It shows, Nice job!

Not as criticism, but my personal 99 observations; The original lines of the 1899/99 stocks are very svelte and subtle, and appeal to most of us (reference past discussions about 99R "clubs", and EG "tomatoe stakes"..). And I've spent way too many hours fussing over "just-right" whittling, trying to satisfy my own eye. I like the oval-ish 1895 side (lock) cheek plates, and the little oval-ish raised cheek rest, both very turn-of-the-century european styling. And I like Your weatherby-wenge schnable. The butt plate is also neat looking in wenge, and tall for positive shoulder contact, which brings the top of the comb up for scope-eye alignment I assume. I have added a perch-belly curve to the bottom of those scope-compliant butt stocks to shrink the height of that butt plate, brings it back toward the classical lines.

The wrist looks a little thick when comparing with classical 1899 lines, be careful of scalloping the top of the wrist a bit lower, back into the comb, it would make the difference, ...but,

This is embarrassingly personal question for me, as a 99 Tinkerbell-whittler myself. I attempted a re-shape of this area on one of my own after-s(h)tocks, because I didn't like how the thick wrist looked. I ran into a problem while doing my last bit internal fitting, I had the stock screwed up snug (nice tight butt, if I say so myself), but I was still getting some bolt-travel stickiness. I had things all chalked up so I could see where it was rubbing,..I found nothing rubbing.. On my last (..ok, maybe I was a little frustrated) bolt-rack, I fractured a 1/4" chuck out of the top-of-the-squirrley-grained-wrist, about 1" behind the top tang. ..."WHAT?!?"

Turns out the inletting at the bolt heel, above the hammer, was just a bit shy.., and the relieved wood at the top of the wrist was just a bit thin, and the squirrely grain wood was pretty, but just a bit fragile, and my patience with fine woodworking was about two cups of coffee over capacity...

Jeff,

Thanks for the look and comments, very helpful.

I agree the wrist is thick. I like the high comb so far. It throws up nicely and put my eye right on the sights. I have a Marble tang sight to put on when I get the metal finish done.

To my eye the relative thickness change in the vertical dimension from rear of action to front of comb is a bit extreme on some example stock photos I've been collecting. There is a Griffin and Howe restock of a full size rifle that is a bit closer to parallel and It find that a bit more pleasing to my eye. Maybe something in between will work.

As I formed the Schnabel detail I wondered if it started as a functional knob to hold a tied or looped carrying sling. Anyone have thoughts on that style origin?

Fortunately I have to take care of a couple other shop tasks so the stock can marinate a bit and the I can take another whack. Actually I have a couple Vixen pattern files and they do a nice controlled job cutting not tearing stock in small layers so I don't go too far, no whacking now.

Thanks again!