Cutting your own Gun Stock Blank

What kind of wood is it? Is it dry?

It's gonna crack

Gunna need a couple gallons of cactus juice for that one!

Osage is neat wood. And for laminate it's no big deal. It needs to dry a long time. Here in the desert at least a couple years. Probably more.

Bark it so insects and mold cant hide. Slap some pva on it. Do the ends 2-3 times. Set it in a dry covered area up off the ground. Don't let any insects get to it. 2 years from now find a guy with a bandsaw big enough to plank it out. Then select the pieces you need for laminate. Lots of it will be checked. Lots of it will be punky. But that's something you can deal with when you have smaller pieces.

Most laminate stocks use stabilized wood. It's a vacuum process. You don't have to do that but it certainly helps when trying to finish it and it does make a better stock.

It takes a pretty big vacuum chamber for big strips. Once it is dry, sawed and planed flat you can stabilize it if you need to. Lots of woodworkers have vacuum chambers and some may have a tank big enough for strips that long. My chamber is about 18" high and 6" in diameter and that's about as big as most craftsmen use.

Finding someone to stabilize might be a problem. That's where the dye is added. So if you want colors you'll need stabilizing resin and dye so the vacuum pulls the dye in to the core of the strips. Once you have a pile of wood to work with the rest is fairly simple.

Cutting a log into lumber can be a chore if you don't have the proper equipment.

I'd suggest you look around to see if someone has a bandsaw mill and offers that service.

If you have a good chainsaw you can cut the log length wise. Just be sure that you brace the log well so it can't move.

You will need a "ripping chain" (10 degree) if you are cutting perpendicular (90 degrees to the long axis of the log) to the grain. The chips will be small and the load on the saw minimal.

If you cut (almost) parallel to the log the chips will be long and stringy and will need to be cleared frequently.

There are a couple of videos on how to rip logs length wise by swinging the saw and cutting with just the tip.

Free-hand ripping is coarse work so allow plenty of extra wood. In any case, take care to rest the saw frequently.


Once you have the blanks ripped to width you'll need to seal the end grain with a couple of coats of paint or glue. Store the slabs in a cool dry spot out of direct sunlight where tthe air can circulate around it. It takes about a year per inch of thickness to dry.

An alternative to making a stock from a piece of lumber, you can glue up pieces cross-cut off the log to make the stock blank. I wrote a guest blog for Pyramyd Air on how to go about that. If you are interested, here's a link to Part 6 that has links to the other parts...


Good luck, be safe and have fun!

Cheers!

I do not have any pieces big enough for even a bullpup stock but I saved some of the stump of an oak "killing tree" that fell over in my yard several years ago. Because it is wood from the stump it is very highly figured. I've made a fore stock, grips and a butt pad for my Prod from it and nose pieces for a couple P35 stocks from this wood after it dried. I hacked rough blanks out with my chainsaw and then cut it some more on my 14 inch bandsaw that has 13 inch rip capacity. The goal was to get a roughly rectangular shape with the chain saw so I could use the band saw on it.

That crotch is going to have some nice grain but only if you cut a blank through it (the harder way). You should decide how much width you need and probably trim some off on both sides. Another caution is that figured wood is harder to work with. The grain changes direction crazily. Hand planning it is likely to result in tear out. Chisel work must be done carefully or the same thing can happen. Cutting and sanding to shape work better. I like flapper wheels in a right angle grinder for rough shaping. But I do all the inletting on a rectangular blank first. I cannot imaging trying to inlet a shaped stock. I would make a plywood template of the stock shape you want and compare that to the log to decide where it needs cut. You want to leave extra but you have a bunch of extra there I think.

I've got another oak laying in my back yard right now. If I wanted a stock of oak I could cut out a blank and let it start drying. But I do not. It's too heavy and too light in color. I might do something with the stump again if the tree services doesn't take it away for me. But it will be more for small touches on stock made mainly of darker woods. The main trunk of the tree in my yard now is around 3 feet in diameter. It was 75-80 feet tall. It's more than my little chain saw can deal with and even if I cut it up I have no way to move the logs. So I'll pay someone.

I myself have been wanting to do the same. Fortunately i do have a saw mill and big o meaty chainsaws with ripping chains the downside is i dont have a goood enough air rifle that needs a stock yet but one day lol i will add that milling wood is rewarding and its nice to have all the building material at whatever size desired but the waste due to drying is enormous the more figured and beautifully grained the wood is the more it warps and cracks this is some flamed boxelder id love to turn into a stock at some point

imtrigerhapy said:

I myself have been wanting to do the same. Fortunately i do have a saw mill and big o meaty chainsaws with ripping chains the downside is i dont have a goood enough air rifle that needs a stock yet but one day lol i will add that milling wood is rewarding and its nice to have all the building material at whatever size desired but the waste due to drying is enormous the more figured and beautifully grained the wood is the more it warps and cracks this is some flamed boxelder id love to turn into a stock at some point

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L A M I N A T E !

I've made a couple of stocks, but I just used oak and poplar 1x6's that I glued together to make blanks. That worked way better than you would think. You have to look very closely to see the seams. With one I did it because I was building a rifle and I was flat broke and couldn't afford to buy a furniture set and the other was an old QB that I kind of went nuts with. The oak turned out much better than the poplar.

In the desert we have lots of highly figured precious woods. Many species here are prone to burling but very few are larger than a basketball. Many are too hard to work with edged tools. The most beautiful are too heavy for a stock. But the grains and colors are spectacular.

Very little of it is suitable for rifle stocks. It's all excellent inlay material. Here is a little mountain mahogany burl as an example. I've made lots of grips and knife handles out of similar material. Even table tops and floors using thin pieces laid like tiles.





Here is a more better burl. You can see the cross grains too...


I love a beautiful stock on someone else's rifle but I much prefer a synthetic stock for mine. I've dolled up several stocks with end caps, pommel and butt extensions and grips. I have carved shapes and figures into stocks and bedded hundreds but have never had the urge to mill a log into lumber and make a stock from scratch.

Cutting raw wood for stocks takes an eye and knowledge of where the best grain to strength ratio is.. That being said dry times are key to any good stock. No fresh cut wood is ready for at least 3 years. Kiln drying is not that good for stocks as it’s forced heat dry with an attempt at re stableizing the wood with moisture to stabelize what you took out very fast.

Glue lines are everything in laminate. Only as strong as the wood itself as glue done right is stronger than the wood itself.
so e nice lumber but not sure of the Janka scale on some of it..

moisture meter will be your friend.

Cut it wet and to a a blank size usually trapezoid 2.5 thick x 8 x tapering to 3 and seal it with armor seal on ends and place on sticks so air can circulate ..let dry. everynwood is different but min two years or more.