I have some of the components for the New 458 Lott now but I am looking for a Laminated stock designed for open site use. Any suggestions for this? I have a Model 70 classic action to go with a Pac Nor Barrel.
The laminated stocks will give much more strength for a rifle with as much potential recoil as this one has. jj
------------------ The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything, they just make the best of everything they have.
Posts: 1261 | Location: Rural Wa. St. & Ellisras RSA | Registered: 06 March 2001
JJ, I have found that using cheap Turkish Walnut is the best route...buy some cull wood that has nice grain on one side and plain on the other then take a couple of them and have Mel Smart laminate them with no white wood contrasting, stain with a blood color and viola, Exibition turkish...I'm doing my first one right now andits looking mighty nice, the best of both worlds...
JJ- For your intended use I would stay with a premium glass stock. Echols and several other top class 'smiths use McMillan and they hold up fine under the recoil of a Lott.
Posts: 1148 | Location: The Hunting Fields | Registered: 22 May 2002
500, Laminated stock will not come apart I assue you they are the strongest stock on the market, by far....The only minus is weight as they tend to be heavy but you can hollow them out a good deal without weakening them.
some of the homemade laminates that didn't have the necessary pressure equipment to force the glue into and out of all the pores have come apart I'm sure...Remember some of the old golf clubs are laminate and still out there a hundred years later...and they take a REAL beating...I repair a lot of composit stocks each year that tend to snap in the grip area..(Mostly horse incidents) as does another local gunsmith that makes a lot of composit stocks....
All that said, I still like Turkish walnut first and French Walnut second...
Try Bill Sheehan. He makes stocks for 1000-yard shooters and is marketing a new laminate stock made from obiche wood (from Africa). It comes in 2 differenct thicknesses of laminate and in two different shades. Go to www.benchrest.com and on the side panel it lists "stockmakers"..go to DB. They look super and one was recently on the cover of Precision Shooting" magazine. You can get a blank or semi-inletted stock.
Posts: 4360 | Location: Sunny Southern California | Registered: 22 May 2002
How well do laminates take checkering? On a 458 Lott the recoil will be stout and I would prefer to have a checked forend to keep it from popping out of my hand especially when wet. jj
------------------ The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything, they just make the best of everything they have.
Posts: 1261 | Location: Rural Wa. St. & Ellisras RSA | Registered: 06 March 2001
Laminate takes checkering well with the checkering power tool...Not so hot by hand as it dulls my tools, I send laminates out to be checkered....A good tip on laminate is to soak the checkering with Hot stuff glue from Brownells, the water thin stuff will make that checkering hard as woodpecker lips..Also makes soft woods like Claro easy to checker and free of fuzz....
We all have limits to where our experience and expertise is at. Clearly mine is in areas other then custom gun building. However like the great Ronald Reagan I have learned do delegate the things I cannot do, to those people who are best at it. My gun builder on this project and you folks have clearly been the right choice to help with it.
My area of knowledge is quite limited to using the tools of the trade not making them. So to all who have posted information on this to assit me (in any of my posts), I am grateful. When the project is complete and It is tested, I will post a photo of "our" project gun and let you know how well it works.
I have every confidence in John Ricks who is putting this together for me and with some of the information I have gained from you all it should be a dandy rifle!jj
------------------ The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything, they just make the best of everything they have.
Posts: 1261 | Location: Rural Wa. St. & Ellisras RSA | Registered: 06 March 2001
Try the Great American Gunstock Company in Yuba City, California. They will sell you a semi-inlet or a completely finished stock. Their work on the complete stock is good (about like an average factory stock)at a reasonable price. They have a pattern that they call their "British Express Rifle" that should work for iron sights, and is IMHO very well proportioned.
As to strength and checkering, I now have over 100 rounds though my Watts with absolutely no visible effect on the stock, and I doubt that Dwayne Wiebe who built the gun would use a stock that was likely to fail. Dwayne checkered the stock at 24 lines per inch in a beautiful flour-de-leis (spelling?)pattern.
As an aside, I bought the gun in unfired condition for about one-fifth of what it cost to build, because the owner died two months after it was completed, and the gunshop where the estate consigned the gun had no idea what it was other than big.
Posts: 3858 | Location: Eastern Slope, Colorado, USA | Registered: 01 March 2001
Richards Gun Stocks makes a nice laminate. I have him leave extra wood in the grip and cheek piece so that I can open the grip up and cut a egg cheekpiece, and I also use an 8.5" forend to make use of the barrel band swivel..
JJ, To my knowlage, Rutply www.rutply.com is the only maker of laminated blanks, other than "one off" custom laid blanks. I do custom blanks with exotic woods once in awhile as I hate the look of the "Gag Me Green" of most laminates. I'm using Padouk (red), Peruvian Walnut(dark), Maple, and Zebrawood (black and white striped), and Jatoba(Brazilian Cherry), and having a blast mixing and matching, as no two are the same, and they are strong as the gates of hell, and carve real nice. A hyd press is a must if you do your own tho! I have used clamps with perfect success, but it is a total bitch to try to handle 12 clamps and 8 to 12 slices of wood, hehe. The tighter you can clamp it, the less you will see of the glueline. Checkering is ok on laminates but I would consider 16lpi as it will grip better if you are in wet weather. Cheers, Mike
Mike we need to talk this over with John once we have things put together to see how we should go with it. He should be ready for the stock in a month or so I would guess? jj
------------------ The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything, they just make the best of everything they have.
Posts: 1261 | Location: Rural Wa. St. & Ellisras RSA | Registered: 06 March 2001
JJ, yeah, roger that. We discussed the Rutply yesterday and are going to order a few blanks for customer guns. They are real strong, butt ugly, and heavy, but they don`t move with the weather, a Cape Buff is not exactly a beauty queen, and with these heavy barrels hanging out there, a stock with some weight will help the swing and will at least cut some recoil. We should just get together at the range we just built up in Bear Valley. My hunting partner owns the whole valley and we have 400 yds for targets and out to 800 on gongs. You can try my 416 with some of my stocks. I put a fair amount of cast off in most of them and people love the way they come up, even if they don`t know why. I got the itchies to cut something last night so carved a red Fiddleback Maple for my 416 model 700/Pac-nor. Lots of drop and cast. I`m probably going to have John put the 404 barrel I recieved a couple weeks ago on the unfired 602 BRNO, and I`ll whip out a stock from the original, and add cast off. I was going to have the barrel put on a virgin Mauser action I aquired awhile back, but I may save that for something real special. So come on over! Be sure to bring me a backstrap steak from an Eland....
