Has anyone here ever done your own butcher block style stock of laminated hardwood? I can get pieces of maple cutstock at work that will just be set out for firewood and glue them together with a clamp or something. Make a big enough piece and then carve my own stock.

I have the skills to do the work, i am just wondering if anyone else has done it?

I'm a woodworker, so I'll comment. Yes, you can glue up the wood and make a stock. I'm not going to do it, but you sure can. Suggestions:

- Use Titebond III glue, which is waterproof.
- Do the glue up with the wood lengthwise, in parallel with barrel direction.
- Use long wood pieces. Short pieces would lead to end-to-end glue bonds, which are so weak as to be worthless. There are router bits that will allow end bonds that are strong.
- Once the glue up is done, know that the glue lines won't accept stain, if you do intend to stain the wood.

Your plan can work. Good luck with it, and post pictures when you finish.

Most everything that I have ever seen glued, comes apart at some time or the other. Maybe I have not seen enough stuff, but I would not trust it. miles

Thin layers of wood will also have less stress, so one squirrely piece won't warp the whole thing.

Exactly!

Don't use Titebond anything. You want to use an epoxy. I use this for making all laminated products.
http://www.smooth-on.com/Epoxy,-Silicone-an/c11_1125_1179/index.html

When you are glueing anything like a gun stock I would cut & grind them to a minimun .0625" to .125" max thick and use flat sawn as much as possible. Bandsaw cut then grind to thickness with 60 grit. Preferably with a surface sander. You could use a belt sander if you make yourself a jig.
All laminated stocks made are spindle cut which I don't like. That product is pressed into the a flat sheets, glued and then cured in a microwave.
Thin flat cut will move less later staying more consistant. If you alternate the pieces so the growth rings are facing in opposite directions(back to back/belly to belly, etc).
Once you get everything cut and ground apply epoxy to both mating surfaces with an epoxy roller. Use two flat boards on the out side to clamp the bundle tight together. Use a lot of pressure with your clamps & use a lot of them. Let set for 24 hours and your redy to start forming your stock.

If you decide this is to much cutting and grinding. Then an other way that works is to find one piece that has very straight grain. Cut it to be your center (prefer flat sawn) say 5/8" thick. Then as many 3/8" thick pieces on both side of the 5/8" center you need to get to the overall thickness you need.

Didn't Rutland use high pressure and high heat to cure and make laminated stocks?

Yup, but they also used spindle cut product.

Anybody hear if Rutland is going to rebuild and start up again?

A good 20 ton press is also good for sandwiching the layer. I use Titebond and you can throw these blanks in the tub and they won't warp.

Adam

I saw one done that way. Had like 2 thin maple stripes right down the middle.. I thought it looked pretty cool..

I wouldn't worry so much about the adhesive as long as it is water proof. I would probably do epoxy just because. I would flip or flop individual layers to alternate the grain and the cup. Wood is still wood and will absorb/give off moisture over time as the relative humidity changes. Just have fun with it ... and of course ... Pictures !

Good luck...

In 1976 I was living in Karl Krogstad's [the filmmaker] house in Seattle when he was in Europe. In the middle of the night a butcher block bench, that Karl had built, exploded.

In the late 1980s I read Hoadley's book on understanding wood:
http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Wood-Craftsmans-Guide-Technology/dp/1561583588

Then I knew how the butcher block exploded.
The S shaped transform of relative humidity to equilibrium moisture content, in the fibers, maps linearly on the different expansion rates for tangential [7%], longitudinal [0.1%], and radial [4%] with respect to the grain.

All of which is just a bit of fancy language to describe the source of the force but overlooks the root cause of the failure. The glue failed, probably due to poor clamping pressure and a bad glue choice.

Epoxy is the best glue for the project in a home shop situation. Titebond in any mix should never be used because it is very fussy in clamping requirements for a laminate and far worse because it creeps under load.

Fresh Urea Formaldehyde glue would also be an excellent choice and in modified form is what virtually all plywood mills use. It is fussy about clamp-ups, but good technique would eliminate all those issues.

Veneer thickness for the glue-ups is not a problem in any way with reasonably straight-grained veneers. I have done them with 3/8" walnut separated by 1/8" maple and that was my favorite of the many I did way, way back.

Another was glued up with fairly thin walnut in the middle and then a layer of glued-up veneer of maple, cherry, maple that was about the same thickness all together as the walnut. I did another of the same combo oriented horizontally and it did not look all that bad.

I did some with tapered veneers in the middle also that were interesting.

In general, unless you have really special glue-up capability, do not try to glue the whole blank at once. Use strong slick cauls with melamine or similar faces if you can get them and be very careful about keeping glue off them.

Do not sand the veneers to thickness as someone suggested, they should be cut with a planer or the gluelines will be greatly magnified in appearance. I have an industrial quality thickness sander and have seen exactly what happens. You can sand to thickness and then scrape the entire surface to clean the fuzz.

I would have absolutely zero concern about orientation of the wood grain as far as strength goes in any reasonably thin veneer glue-up.

If you can lay-up the dimensions of the stock using a large inlet piece of very lightweight wood as a filler it will get you past some of the weight issues with laminate stocks.

PM your phone number and a good time to call if you want to talk about the project or have questions.
art

You should be asking advice, not giving it...

Wow, Sitka, here we go again. Yes the formaldehyde type glue would be better. Back when I worked in a plywood mill we used that glue, and I think we referred to it as a phenolic resin glue. We also had a monster hydraulic press for the glue ups, which few people are going to have access to. And yes, an epoxy type glue would also likely be better. But, I have made many butcher block cutting boards for people, including a professional caterer that asked me to make him a specific type board of a certain wood, thickness, and shape. I did so using Titebond III. It has been about 5 years now and he says they are still great. The wood cost for each board was about $100, and those rascals are heavy. The guy catered brisket for Continental Airlines and 10,000 people and he used my butcher block boards. So...I think I can say that Titebond III works fine in rather severe service. I use Titebond glues quite a bit. I don't use any type polyurethane Gorilla Glues any more. I just don't like using it. The company I retired from made much of that type glue, and it has it's uses.

Now, back to the OP. He wanted to make a butcher block type stock. That suggests to me that he was not going to use thin veneers, but would use larger chunks of wood. TB III would probably work fine in that type glue up. I would not have suggested that for a thin veneer glue up, because creep could be an issue for someone that didn't have the experience, equipment, and clamps that I have.

Prior to using TB III in cutting boards, I used TB II. I never thought to tell anyone to NOT put them in the dishwasher. Happily, TB III seems to hold up in the dishwasher, though I still don't recommend it.

Are you still mad about my seeing no rust freckles on that gunstock? Lighten up.

I & my extended family have varied sizes of laminate cutting boards I made in 1972 in wood shop. I used Elmer's Woodworking Glue from a squeeze tube. One of those boards is 3'x6'x1" Oak strips.

They have all had more water across them over the years than Niagra Falls. They are all still in service with no signs of slowing down.

Years ago I toured Mel Smart's shop in Kalispell. He was the originator of the stocks that are now Serengeti. I even picked out my own blank and he laid it up for me. He had 5-gallon buckets of Titebond (I don't remember which generation). He band-sawed the layers (mine is 5 layers) and then lighted planed them before they were glued and clamped in a screw fixture.

I can tell you that for aircraft repair we used to have to use Urea Formaldehyde glue. It is now considered obsolete for aircraft structure repair. The only glue now is Recorcinal glue (Recorcinal-formaldehyde). This glue has to be mixed. I think epoxy is allowed if it comes with engineering instructions as well but there are so many different epoxies that using the right one is imperative.

The stocks that Mel made held up well. Dave Scoville, editor of Rifle magazine took one of Mel's stocks and kept it in his shower for a month and then buried it in a snow back for the duration of the winter. I seem to recall that he found no warpage nor delamination of the joints.

Mel made laminated baseball bats as well. He showed me the data where they could get more than 1000 at-bats from one of his laminated bats. He said that the lobby from the long time bat makers kept his product from ever becoming adopted. He said that it would save the average player at least a $1000 a season just in broken bats! It was no advantage in hitting just more durable. He said that he used Titebond on this as well.

Mel seemed to think that the type of glue was not as important as the prep and clamping process.

As Art pointed out, sanded joints are bad news and in fact, not allowed in aircraft repairs.

Here is what the FAA thinks of Urea glue:

Plastic resin glue, also known as a urea-formaldehyde
adhesive, came on the market in the middle to late 1930s.
Tests and practical applications have shown that exposure
to moist conditions, and particularly to a warm humid
environment, under swell-shrink stress, leads to deterioration
and eventual failure of the bond. For these reasons, plastic
resin glue should be considered obsolete for all aircraft
repairs. Discuss any proposed use of this type adhesive on
aircraft with FAA engineering prior to use.


Sounds like if you want to use it you better be prepared to explain why! Probably work fine here in Arizona but not the best for being dishwasher safe

Okay, a few points... gunstock suitability and cutting board suitability are miles and miles apart. There is virtually no carry-over in applications.

Titebond glue is not structural and non-load-bearing because it creeps. Under the shock of recoil wood is subjected to much different forces than about anything else.

Notice very few woods are ever used for stocks. There is a reason for that. Few woods have the proper combination of properties to withstand the shock. Flexibility, strength across the grain, working strength to failure, and many more properties determine how good the joint will be.

Aircraft usage of Urea Formaldehyde is primarily not allowed anymore due to the difficulty in controlling temperature during curing, which is critical to final strength. Improper curing would lead to early problems and lab tests showed a wide range of finished properties when applied under poor control. It was not a result of water changes so much as shown by them to be problematic.

Aircraft appropriate woods were and are also very different from stock woods. And Titebond is not allowed in aircraft use in any formulation. Again, because it creeps like all PVA and polymer glues.

The creeping will allow gluejoints to telegraph their location over time. The Serengeti, Mel Smart system is different in that he laid up veneers back in line with their original positions in the board. The idea was to interrupt forces and minimize their play by turning them into different units rather than the whole working in a given direction. Fewer laminations and fewer directional force changes leave it less likely to telegraph, but in my opinion borne of much testing it is a lousy, but cheap glue choice for the job.

More later...

I suspect the OP was using the term "butcher block" because he lost the term "laminated" for a minute while asking his question. Because there is virtually no crossover in requirements between gunstock lamination and cutting board lamination you can rest assured your cutting board experience is not applicable...

You may also rest easy knowing your lack of perception of the most common things coupled with your willingness to share your lack of basic Physics comprehension truly puts you in a special clique.

Sitka, I went back and reread the. OP's post. He wasn't talking veneer, but cut-offs of wood. My suggestion was that what he wanted to do was possible, but I wouldn't do it. But, if he wanted to go ahead with it, it would probably work. The glue up was going to be very tough if he didn't have the equipment to square everything up prior to gluing things together.

As for whether or not TB III would work in that application, I believe that it would. Over a lot of years I have not had any problems with creep, except during the glue up. A bad clamp job will allow pieces to slide around a bit. I've laminated rocking chair rockers and other curved wooden pieces, and the years pass and the evil creep hasn't showed it's face. So I expect this is much like a lot of what you screech and shout about. You have a lot of opinions that have little basis in fact.

As for your statement about butcher blocks and gunstocks being so different, I disagree. It's just wood being glued up. Do a good job and it'll stay glued up.

Heck, the hard part about making a gunstock is not the glue up, it's then turning that chunk of wood into a proper stock.

And, regarding your constant screeching and shouting that I mentioned earlier, Shakespeare must have been thinking of you when he said "it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing". You have a tendency to become tiresome.

Nope, i meant butcher block. Like this.... only a gun stock.

If you can get pieces 30" long you can probably squeeze one out, but I would not do the random length thing, at all.

"Creep" is an engineering term unrelated to the glue-up. The fact you are clueless about that is only more proof you have no freaking clue what you are talking about.

Again, asking advice should be your forte.

Not random by much, i am simply able to get them in the lengths i stated above. I was thinking of doing the offset as pictured so there is not one main joint. That would cause weakness in the stock and that is not a good thing.

ironeagle 84;
Top of the morning to you Marty, it's good to see you posting again and I hope all is well with you and yours.

I'm just about to head up the mountain behind the house for a quick run to see if any whitetail buck or small bull moose are out on this too, too warm morning, but will type a quick comment or two first.

As I believe you know, I've worked in kitchen cabinetry in one form or another for since '87 and during that time saw untold train car loads of maple laminated up for kitchen counter tops, cutting boards, solid panel cabinet doors, solid panel passage doors and other miscellaneous items like mantles, etc.

It is my opinion that while it's possible to make a stock out of random length off cuts, the result will not be favorable and the eventual outcome will be that you'll learn not to do it again.

That said, I've found sometimes experiences like that aren't all bad in the greater scheme of things as I've learned more from projects that went into the ditch than ones that worked fine and I wasn't sure just why.

Hopefully that made sense ans was useful information. If you'd like I can answer here or via PM if you'd like to send one later.

At present, the mountain is calling my name and I just gotta go.....

All the best to you folks Marty.

Dwayne

Dwayne, i want to buy you a cup of coffee and share the woods with you some time. You are a class act.

I appreciate your opinion and was hoping someone with your level of expertise would chime in. I can also get 1/4" walnut veneer and maple and mahogany.... I just thought i would get the free stuff.

I am glad i havent started, but if i can score enough reject walnut, maybe i will make a stock for my 22. Marlin model 60.

ironeagle 84;
Thanks for the kind words sir, I do appreciate them and will do my best in future posts to deserve them.

My main reservation with a "cutting board" type lamination is that it does move somewhat - as do laminated solid wood door panels, drawer fronts, etc - and they move more than I'd be comfortable with in a stock.

I have done a two piece laminated walnut stock in a .22 and for sure I'd think a .22 project stock would be a grand place to start. Typically we don't expose our .22's to either the recoil forces or the weather that some of our big game hunting rifles are going to see.

If one was to do full width lamination - say 6" wide pieces - then one could conceivably end up with something similar to a Serengeti stock - if the glue is correct and correctly applied.

Anyway Marty, hopefully that made some sense and was useful for you or someone out there tonight. All the best to you and your family, good luck with your woodwork projects and your remaining hunts this fall too.

Dwayne

For a rimfire 22, I say go for it. As Dwayne said, lots to learn, maybe even more so if it doesn't work. But I don't see knocking the glued up joints loose with that, and may turn out to be quite the conversation piece at the range.

You can always claim to be able to shoot it and butcher it with the same gun!

Butcher Block Stock- I'd mill the off side of the butt stock flat so I could serve cheese and charcuterie. Maybe in let the rear to hold a small knife and fork.



Sounds like a fun project, Marty! Post photos as you go.

As to butcher blocks and stocks- I've beat the hell out of some butcher blocks. Lots of water and pounding, drops of counters. Sure there are large differences, but I've abused a few butcher blocks far more than I have rifle stocks.

There-You-Go!

Just wrong. Not a Good Idea.

It'd be different enough that I think it'd be cool! Plus you built it yourself.

I say do it Marty!

A skilled stockmaker is going to take a minimum of 40 hours to make a stock from a blank. With that much effort going into the work it seems strange to go so cheap on the most critical material.

Time spent laying out the stock and working hard to ensure everything looks exactly right would be lost if all of that was given up for purely random results.

Anyone goofy enough to believe a cutting board glue-up is at all like a laminated stock would be needs to look closer at the uniform, large gluing faces in cutting board pieces and the narrow glue-ups in critical places in a stock. Then look at the differences in forces being placed on those joints. They are nothing alike!

For phucs sake Art, he just wants to find a winter project and hide in the garage and have fun for a while. Its not going to be a 460 Weatherby.

Obviously Bubba is alive and well...

Garbage in, garbage out...

As is the obnoxious know it all from AK.

Honestly Art, its not always about making the world's greatest stock. In this case, i was mostly thinking out loud, and looking to have a little fun in the process.

By all means, have a little fun, spend a little time doing whatever you want. That is almost totally your call (though your wife and family may have some input) and making sawdust is a great way to do that... Old men sitting on the porch whittling for a few hours are just doing that sort of thing...

But building a stock has some serious time commitment and in my very direct experience teaching a number of folks to build stocks they do not do their best work when they know the outcome is going to be "special."

Practicing checkering for example on a beat-up stock does not lead to the concentration required to do it right. When Riley, at 10, decided to build a stock he chose from a huge stack of blanks most folks would call Exhibition grade. And he did a hell of a job, and not just for a 10-year-old. He was excited about the project the whole way (until he had to sand it!) and the result was not only that better stock but he learned a lot more that carried forward.

There are structural and aesthetic considerations in your plan and the simple answer is the result will not be worthy of your 40+ hours of work.

If finding a stick worth your time is an issue send me your address in a PM and I will mail you a stick, gratis, that will leave you with something worthy of your time and pride.

You will learn more and feel better about it.

What's the matter there Google-FU? Fail to find anything of value in your searches and had to pretend you had something of value to add?

If I have ever said anything you know to be wrong, please list it. You have made all sorts of very stupid posts and have yet to show me an error I made.

And anyone knowing anything has left you in the dust.

Once again, you have proven my point. Keep up the good work.

Why is it you want to call me names unrelated to accuracy of information? You realize you were called on multiple errors, right?

I'll keep my track record and accept your "obnoxious" handle with pride. Would far rather have a track record of giving advice I know to be true as opposed to guessing with yet another Google link.

Art, thank you for your kind offer.

The original question was pretty well answered resoundingly with a "no" for any centerfire rifle, but i am still unsure about a rimfire. I have a Marlin model 60 that i wouldnt mind doing a stock for, but if i went with the butcher block approach, i would most likely paint it. It wasnt about the look of fine wood in that case. I do have a love of working on stocks, i just dont have anything to stock right now.

One of these days, i will hopefully get ahold of that LH Remington 700 ADL i have been eyeing and then build something nice for it if i can find a blank. There is a shop here in town that has several 90% blanks, but he doesnt have the blank i would need for that rifle. I will look you up when the time comes and we can work something out. Id look forward to some chatting about general woodwork on stocks.

Stay away from semi-inlet blanks, especially when starting. Laying out the blank is not rocket science and you will actually learn why and how it is done without spending enough extra time to even begin to worry about it. The initial cutting saves a surprisingly small amount of time. It is the final clean-up that takes the most time and the process of guessing where to start cutting is not terribly rewarding.

But sticking to someone else's pattern could easily be very limiting...

If you are gluing up a piece to paint there are lots of ways to go about that and random butcher block is not the way to go. Each piece would be laid up where it should be and the grain chosen accordingly.

Doing that right takes the kind of insight you develop actually building a stock and figuring out the whys of the process.

The offer stands if you find your action.

Art, when you say "stick" to what exactly are you referring?

I worked on a few semi inlet blanks as that is all he had that would fit the bill. I dont even know where to look for a (regular?) blank?

Do you have a picture you could post for reference?

Thanks again for your insight and the kind offer.

I have an idea to build a .358 Norma on a lefty Mauser action if i can ever find one. That would look good with a wood stock.

A blank is just a piece of wood capable of producing a stock. A "stick" is just horrible Redneck slang for the same thing and now that you have forced me to defend it I realize it is goofy and I will never use it again!

For a 358 Norma you set the sights quite high for a blank. It would subject the finished wood to a lot of forces and would need to be a pretty respectable piece of wood with no mechanical issues and very good lay-out. Obviously a 22LR does not put the same demands on a stock that the Norma would.

When you get to the point of needing a blank we can talk about what you need and how to get it.

Oregon black walnut is noted for its quality and with the small mills and such I would think finding a reasonable blank cheap would be pretty easy. Myrtle and if you could find a really dense piece of bigleaf maple would also make stocks capable of handling a big rifle.

Long drying time and repeated seasonal humidity swings would produce a fine stock, so you better get on it!

My offer still stands, but looking for stock blanks is a lot of the fun of the whole project for me.

the stock I got from Mel has the pieces either flipped end for end or flipped the short direction as there are spots on top where the color doesn't run true. from the side it blend really good

This was my first thought.

There have been a lot of different things done to make a stock from little pieces of wood... Not all of them make sense...

Marty;
Top of the morning again to you sir, I trust this finds you and your fine family well.

Not that Art needs my seconding any of his opinions, but I'll second his suggestion to start from a block of wood rather than a semi inletted blank.

My only exception here Marty would be that IF you know a stock maker - doesn't have to be a pro, just a serious student sometimes will do - but again IF you know someone who could vouch for the quality of the inletting done by the semi-inletted blank maker then it might not lead to too much heartache.

The proverbial sticky wicket is that fixing bad inletting isn't - in my experience anyway - as easy as doing it from scratch and getting the holes and lines right.

Of course the other benefit is that when you start with a blank canvas you have options with shape that most if not all semi-inletted blanks can't begin to match.

Art's offer of a blank is a generous one by the way - do give it some consideration please - as a blank with the grain going where it's supposed to can make life much, much easier in numerous ways.

Anyway Marty, it would appear that my coffee is about done, it's below freezing outside now and a cold front is coming in to drop it lower, so if that doesn't kick the whitetail bucks on the mountain above the house soon then I'll be eating Costco pork and chicken this winter.....

The mountain is calling me again Marty and as you well know, when it calls that loud, folks like you and I have to go.

Again I hope that was useful information to you - feel free to drop me a PM if you think I can be of any use to you and good luck on your stocking projects and your hunts.

Dwayne

PS;
You do realize we're hoping to see photos like this from you sooner than later, right?

Many wonderful stocks come from semi-inlets. As long as you are happy with the pattern it won't make a bit of difference to the final product.

Concerning the butcher block concept. I now of two stockmakers that use a similar process to make patterns but not finished stocks. They use cherry.

My point on semi-inlets is not that they are wrong, but rather they do not have any good set reference points as all that gets machined away. If you have built plenty of stocks it is not an issue, but for a guy doing his first stock a great deal of the knowledge needed is not available and it leads to disadvantages.

Art;
Top of the morning to you sir, I hope you and your fine family are doing acceptably well.

My thought on semi-inletted stocks is that if a person hasn't worked a stock or three it's more difficult to get around either a poorly or flat wrongly inletted stock.

While I've done up a few that were close to perfect, there's been at least two that required new action holes installed and a fair bit of wood grafted in to hide the resulting modifications.

Because it wasn't my first stock, most people can't see the repairs until they are pointed out to them - but if it was a first time stock builder encountering that sort of thing - well it might put them off further work in that area and that would be a pity.

Anyway sir, that's all I was trying to say, not in any way that I've never used a semi-inletted blank because I surely have and most likely will again too.

All the best to you folks Art and good luck on your remaining hunts this fall.

Dwayne

Dwayne
Thank you for the clarification... Most of the issues I have seen were in Mauser semi-inlets. I gave one to 458Lott and he did a great job of taking an "almost Guymon" to a classic and even changed the species of wood on the way. I was convinced it was just black walnut but by the time he was finished it had obviously turned to Bastogne!

Good thing too as he was working on a big bore.
art

An offer from Art to provide a blank is not one to be taken lightly. I'd settle for an offer of one of his throwaways let alone one he hand picked.

When you get the stock built get him to give you his recipe for finishing it. It will be the most weather resistant wood stock you will ever own.

Dale

Not all semi inlets are the same.

This can certainly happen using generic semi inlets but can be avoided using your own pattern fitted to your barreled action before the duplication. I've done this on several occasions with great results. I've seen a few generic inlets that it would have been easier to start from a blank but not all semi inlets are equal.

I like this proccess because it allows me try different things on the pattern. If I don't like it I can repair and start over using the same pattern. After I finish and I'm happy with the pattern I send it and the blank off to be duplicated.

The guy I send mine to uses a Hoenig duplicator and the results are very impressive and it saves a lot of time. I need to remove very little wood to get a good fit.










[img]http://photos.imageevent.com/lucky/93x621909argintinemauser/huge/IMG_2053.JPG[/img]
[img]http://photos.imageevent.com/lucky/93x621909argintinemauser/huge/9.3X62%20again%20111.JPG[/img]

Terry

The process mentioned above would also work pretty well for you ironeagle_84. Use your butcher block idea and if you are happy with stock but not the results, send it off and have it duplicated to a nice piece of seasoned walnut.

Okaaayyyy... But how does this apply to someone without access to all of the experience and equipment?

And a duplicator IME saves very little time in the long run. Someone doing a one-off is not going to save any time...

Terry;
Thanks for posting the photos of one of my favorite rifles. Every time I see that one I get all misty eyed and squishy feeling somehow.

As we've both said and I heartily agree with, all semi inletted stocks aren't made equally.

The first one I encountered was doing up a 788 - who knew there were 3 action lengths on those things..... not me up to that point and not the chap I got the inletted blank from either.

That said, doing a few major modifications to stocks does have some benefits - for instance when our youngest started hunting we were able to make an already shortened birch 788 stock fit a 722 action.

Then there was the chap who brought me a thumbhole stock inletted for an A Bolt, asking if I could fit it to a BBR. As it turns out I could.

Anyway sir, thanks for the pleasant exchange and most certainly thanks for posting the photos of some of your wonderful long arms.

All the best to you and good luck on your remaining hunts this fall.

Dwayne

You simply send it off to be duplicated. You don't need to buy one, No big deal. You are dead wrong about it not saving time. It does and that's why many proffesional stock makers do it this way now. As far as lack of experience goes, that favors the custom duplication process mentioned above. Take off too much on your blank and that's perminant. Take off too much on your pattern and you simply put it back on. When you get your semi inlet back, if you paid someone with a good machine to do it right you will have very little wood to remove. that alone will reduce your chances of messing it up.

Stock from a blank:

http://forums.accuratereloading.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/9411043/m/4711078031