doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com This Just Back From Macon Gunstocks...

Brian,

Inletting is quite good; the gun functions flawlessly. The first time I took it out to shoot wobble trap it was just me and the trapper, and I put two boxes of shells through the gun in about ten minutes. Good thing I keep a couple pair of goat skin gloves in my shooting bag, as I would not have been able to touch the barrels w/o a glove on my off hand.

No glass bedding at all.

Kyrie,

Where in the world do you find that absolutely spectacular wood?

That stock blank did turn into a remarkable stock, didn't it? I bought that blank from Old Tree Gun Blanks. Some years ago I came across a similar blank on Hunter Bid (Chiron):



I bid on it, eventually won it, and then sat on it for several years waiting for the right gun to come along. That turned out to be a Martin Ugarteburu Model 115 I stumbled upon in a gunshop in Taradell (just outside on Barcelona). I was vastly lucky to have Diego Godoy, a master gun maker, put wood and gun together, to my measure. Here is the result:

http://s295.photobucket.com/user/Kyrie_E...el%20115?sort=6

How's that for similar to the stock on the Gregorio San Martin? Hard to believe the two blanks came from different trees on different continents, found and bought years apart.

Howdy gents,
As an experienced stock worker, I just have to stick my two cents in here, just can't help myself. While that is definitely beautiful wood, and the stock work done seems well worth the money spent on it, the stock layout was not done to make for a very strong stock. If you will notice, the grain lines run from just behind the trigger bow up into the top of the wrist just in front of the nose of the comb. It is along these grain lines that the stock will easily break if subjected to very much side stress/strain. I have had to repair many, many stocks with broken wrists that have had poor grain flow layout just like this. IMHO, it is not a question of if the stock will break, but when. To make for a strong stock, the grain lines need to flow from the action area straight back and parallel through the wrist and then on into the butt, where it can diverge from there and spread out.

The only exception that I would personally ever make to this generalization is that if the stock was held on by a through-bolt. This affords at least a little bit of extra support to bad grain layout through the stock's wrist. I would feel even better about it if the stock bolt hole were drilled out oversized to accept a full length steel tube, glued in place, that the stock-bolt could pass through. To do otherwise is asking for trouble down the road. You all take care and watch that grain flow through the wrists!

Ya'll all obviously have a better eye than me but that is a nice job for the money or otherwise.

Clint M
What you are saying makes sense to me.

Sorry Clint, but this piece of wood has fooled your eye. What you think is grain (actually, the annular rings) isn�t � it�s figure. The grain is completely obscured by the figure in that piece of wood. Highly figured wood can fool the eye into thinking it sees something that isn�t really there, and that�s what just happened here.

I spent many years as a stock maker, and specialized in top end, highly figured wood. I can appreciate how easy it is for anyone without a great deal of experience with that kind of wood to be tricked by that stock.

On a closely related subject, the stock blank in that picture I posted (Chiron blank # s382) is another example of a highly figured blank in which the figure makes the annular rings hard to see. That blank looks like it has annular rings going every which-a-way, but is actually a rift sawn blank just slightly off quarter sawn, with grain flow straight as a ruler from head to within a few inches of butt, where it takes a slight drift to the toe. That�s a structure not visible from the photo. With that kind of wood a stocker has to have the actual wood in hand and time to figure out how it�s actually structured.

Howdy Kyrie,
Well, I certainly stand corrected, sir! I guess there is no substitute for having the wood in-hand when making a critical evaluation. Evidently the wood in photos can fool the eye, even someone like me with fair amount of experience, admittedly though not as much as you have. Thanks for setting me straight!

I read a lot here and don't post much, which maybe is a good thing! But, I still would like to hope that my advice may save someone else from making a mistake on wood selection.

Beautiful Spaniard!!! But, most importantly, it fits the shooter.

How does it feel coming up to your shoulder? Sights in front of you without a hitch? And, how does it shoot?

Spoken like a true gentleman. You�re obviously a man with valuable experience and I hope you�ll keep posting here, as you have much to share.

P.S. check for a PM