A friend of mine recently got a CNC mill, and of course I would love to have him inlet me a stock. Are there any readily available step files for this?

Either in the public domain, (i.e. free...) or commercially available for purchase?

Alternately if you have developed your own personal file for this, might you be willing to share, (for a fee or for free...) with a hobbiest who has no plans to compete with your business, but just wants to try something new and save a little labor for the half dozen at most stocks I might have left in me?

Thanks.

All your friend has to do is measure the action, then program his machine accordingly.

Try it on any piece of wood first, and once he has it done properly do the stock.

We get all sorts of odd jobs to be done here, and this is how we do it.

Same as on our CNC lathe.

i was worn out trying to make it work, about 12 years ago - 3d scanning wasn't then what it is now.

you MUST spin the tool fast - i had best results using carbide ROUTER bits

...The guys that use duplicated stocks can find pretty good non CNC services available .

I can say from experience, that 98 actions vary quite a fair amount , then add the variables of polishing and various accessories i.e,. triggers, bottom metal, etc....I don't see an advantage

The concept of CNC stocks may have merit for the mfg that is also making actions with ...a CNC.

Pete Grisel once told me they were trying that out at Dakota.

I understand manufacturing variation, and have no expectations of a 100% drop-in with "grew together" wood/metal fit, but I would think that with the technology today we ought to at least be able to equal what factories of the 1920s and 30s were putting out. Maybe good enough to get to a 98% solution. And CNC seems like the logical hands-off means to achieve this.

I look at the 1909 Argy, VZ-24 and 1950s or 60s FN stocks I have hanging in my workshop and they far exceed the inlet quality of most of the semi-inlets I have seen and worked with. And of the two unbarrelled actions I have laying around, (Argy and FN) the fit is ALMOST interchangeable between all of them. (The one that didn't drop in could probably be made to do so in 30 minutes or less...)

That level of quality is probably good enough for most skilled hobbiests.

Granted, I have not worked with a high-end duplicator, so perhaps that is my problem...

Nor have I ordered from GAG, Boyds, Richards or any other known maker, so I don't know how they might compare to the various rough stocks I have picked up at gunshows, eBay, and pawn shops through the years.

Boyds does this every day; 99% solution; mostly drop in with a couple of small gaps and maybe a couple places needing a sliver removed. Good enough for most guys; not a full custom job. But they don't coat $5k either. Which is cheap for a full hand made stock.
Yes those old military stocks are interchangeable and they were made on dumb iron machines. Refer to above; good enough for most purposes.
Oh, GAG is totally out of business and they were rough pantographed. Boyds are CNC (I use lots of them) and very good. Richards are now CNC (prior to a couple of tears ago they were pantographed and about 95%; I used many of them) and also very good.
So, what you want, is already being done.

quote:

Originally posted by dpcd:
So, what you want, is already being done.

Except... I want to choose the blank and do it on my friends machine.

Been there done that.

A number of years ago I needed some semi roughed stocks for M98's, 10 of them I recall.

So I surfaced both sides of the blanks to all the same thickness ) +/- .008" ), even off set and left a extra amount on the rear for the cheek piece
Then laid the pattern out and rough sawed the pistol grip up to the forearm thickness, and the same for the top of the stock, and comb.
Had them all the same as the close as I could get.

Then several hours on the CAD, and then writing code for the CNC mill, went to the MIN width to allow for final hand in-letting
No you have to remember that CNC only has a 16 inch X travel so had the top half program got from an inch behind the rear tang out the top of the barrel as far as I could.
Did the receiver inlet as a small ring full length M98 action so I did not have to worry about the step up to large ring

Drilled the front guard screw all the way thru out the bottom of the blank so when I flipped it over I could use a rod to index the blank back and forth on its X Axis

Now I could CAD and write the second program to mill the trigger guard inlet and profile that stock line, when I got to the rear of the guard, I simply wrote the code to go upwards at a 45 degree to clear the excess wood out.

So now I have a flat sided stock blank with a undersize in-letting that I can final fit a barreled action into.
Once I have the metal in place, then the RASP work and CHISEL, and SPOKE SHAVE work starts on the outside of the square flat sided blank.

It worked out OK, would I do it again NO I WOULD NOT, got me out of the bind I was in at that time.
Much easier to make up a full pattern stock in the shape and have it fit your metal, then send off the pattern and blank you want carved to somebody that does that type of work.

My 2 cents.

J Wisner

Montea; what I meant that Boyds is doing every day, what you want to do on your friends machine.

Got it Dpcd, and thanks for the perspective Jim.

Jim - So going back to my original request; since you don't seem to see commercial value in the file you created, would you be willing to share?

This friend is closer to my brother in law, but both are very capable Boeing engineers and there has been talk of 3D scanning a receiver and creating a file from that. Which they may want to do anyway. But we are tinkerers at heart, so as much as I would like create my own personal pattern stock, (and likely will one day...) the intent isn't really to find the "best" way to make a rifle stock, but to explore the capabilities of the machine and have fun doing it.

I guess you could respond "then have at it..." but to me having another file might make for interesting comparison of results with anything we might also create from a 3D scan. Again, not looking for anything proprietary, just that if we are going to reinvent the wheel anyway why not have another wheel on hand for comparison?!

Name your price. I will be driving back and forth to Portland several times in the coming month, I would be happy to detour off I-5 with a USB drive and bottle of single malt Scotch. Or some cash... I have used your safeties, and as a "fan" I would be honored to meet you.

Please PM me if you have any other thoughts or concerns that you might not want to make public.

Cheers, Mike