doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Good stock making books

Reading Mr. Petrov's threads about Al Linden and Mr. Vosmek makes me wonder if there are any books (in print) that cover the art of stock making. David Westbrook's "Professional Stockmaking" seems to be out of print.

I really enjoy fitting semi-inletted stocks to my guns, but without having any training in the best way to do it, I want to do a better job.

Does anyone have any recommendations?

I hope someone has some good book suggestions as I am in need of the same information! I have tried to avoid the wood part for a lot of years but now find I will have to learn these skills to finish some projects
Thanks, Norm

Westbrook's book is excellent, out of print but available for the right price on Amazon, 2 copies, $250 & $350. great B&W photos for every step of the way, someday I'll get up the nerve to try it myself.

There are plenty of copies of Lindens "Firearm Design And Assembly: The Inletting Of Gunstock Blanks And Modifications Of The 1903 Springfield" which is part of a 4 volume set including Checkering of Gunstocks by Monte Kennedy. Try Abebooks.com

You saw the same prices I saw! Last I checked, it was $150, guess I'll make an investment in gunsmithing book futures - what a return!

Is the Westbrook's book really worth $250-$350 ? For that price I would want the book most of the work! If it is good enough to make someone that is "wood challenged" like me capable of doing a passable job I will consider it. It looks like the US dollar will be next to worthless soon anyway.

You don't have to break the bank to obtain enough information to get started. I'm not a gunsmith by any stretch of the imagination, but last spring and summer, I put a custom model 70 Winchester rifle together and did the stock work myself.

I have done some stock re-finishing in the past, and put together a couple of muzzleloading rifles from kits, but never did a stock from a blank before. A friend came up with a blank of Oregon myrtle (pepperwood) and insisted that I use it for my custom rifle.

I am mostly into single shot rifles now, but have done my share of hunting and shooting with all kinds of firearms. So when the opportunity came up to build this rifle, I pretty much knew what I liked in a rifle stock and what I didn't. In this case, I wanted to have a butt with approximately the same dimensions as a pre-64 model 70 lightweight, and the forearm was going to resemble the fit and feel of a Ruger No. 1.

I started out by reviewing the contents of two Outdoor Life books; "Gun Owner's Book of Care, Repair and Improvement" by Roy Dunlap, and "Do-It-Yourself Gunsmithing" by Jim Carmichel. Either of these books can be purchased on eBay or Amazon for around $10 or less, and they contain quite a bit of information regarding tools and methods. Then I bit the bullet and bought a copy of "Custom Rifles in black and white" by Steven Dodd Hughes, which gave me a good idea of what to do in terms of stock proportion and symmetry.

I do not own many woodworking tools, but I came up with a 1/2-inch gouge, 1/4-inch flat chisel, a rawhide mallet and a 4-way rasp. The Brownell's catalog was good for 5/8-inch barrel channel tool, stockmaker's action screws and some inletting gold. The local hardware store was good for a supply of sandpaper in various grits.

I made a set of full-scale top and side-view drawings before I got started.

This is going to sound gruesome to a real stockmaker, but I roughed out the shape of the stock with a Skil saw and drilled the action screw holes with my drill press.

Once I got started, it was hard to stop long enough to eat and sleep. I really got cranked up on it. Without proper tools, I put quite a bit of time into it...over 100 hours, I guess...but I went slow and tried to think ahead of myself about three steps so I wouldn't take too much wood off in any one place.

The whole time, I was pretty nervous that I would do something to ruin the beautiful piece of wood I had been given to do the stock with, but I'm pleased with the final result. A Pac-Nor barrel chambered in 7x57mm was rust blued and mated to the model 70 receiver. The barrel is free-floated full length and the action is pillar-bedded. When I was working up an elk load for it, the Nosler 160-grain partition bullets shot into one hole at 100 yards and printed two inches at 400 yards. Yes, Mr. Elk bit the dust in October.

If I can do it, just about anyone can. Here are a few pictures.

What Dennis said.

The Wesbrook book is good, AAMOF IMO it's the best one out there if you're limited to just one book, but it's only one man's view of a very complex subject. Any careful workman who plans properly and has a few of the proper tools can make a fine stock from a blank with the knowledge gained from this book or from several others like the Linden ones.

My library contains all the smithing books I can afford including the Wesbrook one (bought back when new and relatively inexpensive!) and all the other major smithing works I could find printed in English. None of them contain all the necessary info for all stockmaking applications since most concentrate on bolt actions, but the basics are there. If you're seeking a single book with all the stockmaking methods & details in it then IMO you'll never find it 'cause it hasn't been written yet. When I was reading the Wesbrook and Linden books I remember thinking, "I know of at least 3 other ways of doing this, and I'd shape that differently, and I wish he had shown the details of how to do this other thing!" Just read the smithing books you can find, and combine the info from the books with the info you get from your friends and your own thoughts to form a plan, then execute the plan.

Like Dennis, you won't necessarily need a lot of tools. I use a lathe to drill any drawbolt hole, a bench-model drill press to drill some of the holes and a hand drill for the others. I use 3 rasps, only 3. One is a medium cabinet rasp with semi-coarse teeth, the second is the small 4-way wood file sold by Brownell's and the third is a rat-tail file. I use 7 wood chisels, 3 half-rounds and 3 flats all of different widths plus a bottoming chisel. Five scrapers including 2 for the barrel channel. Sure, a wider tool selection would be cool, but it's not absolutely necessary for good work and does not guarantee a thing except that now you have more tools. I have lots of wood tools but these are the ones I use almost exclusively.

BTW I've found that I absolutely CANNOT find/buy the chisels and scrapers already shaped like I need, so I have to make about half of them. IMO you should expect to do the same, for best results.

Make a full-size accurately-dimensioned drawing of the entire rifle or gun BEFORE starting any cuts. I say again, make a full-size accurately-dimensioned drawing of the entire rifle or gun BEFORE starting any cuts!

IMO the Wesbrook book is so expensive now because "They don't make 'em any more!" and not because it's the only good one. It's good, perhaps even the best, but it's not the only good one.
Regards, Joe

Thanks Dennis and Joe for the good information! I am going to give it a try. I have finished a lot of stocks and built several rifles with semi inletted stocks in the past but for some reason I have never tried making a stock from a blank.
Dennis, Your pictures seem to be blocked for some reason and will not open. Have I got something set wrong?

Norm

Norm, I'm not sure what to tell you about the pictures, as I am not much of a computer geek. If you can see a box with an X in it, have you tried to right click on the box and then left click on "show picture"?

Heck, showing off my new rifle stock that I'm so proud of was about half the point of my post.

Anyone else having trouble seeing the pictures?

Not bad Dennis, you got most of the bulk off which is where many first time stockers miss the boat. Glad you found my book helpful, it is going to be very difficult to come by shortly.
I can't give much advise, my first stock was from the blank, but I was under the tutelage of Edward J. Shulin, who made his living teaching stockmaking. Generally I'd advise one to start with a semi-inlet, but some are better off just chopping on a block.
Too bad about these out-of-print books. I'll be set up with Dave Wesbrook at the Guild show and I'll ask him, but I'm pretty sure there is no reprint planned?!