Hello All,
I'm getting tires of using a bench vice with padded jaws to hold my SKS (only rifle at the moment) while cleaning. I've been thinking it shouldn't be very hard to build a horizontal cleaning stand out of wood. Using say, 2 V's with leather to rest upon and a movable "jaw" to hold the butt. Has anyone done this and have any suggestions or tips?
Thanks homemade
-Josh

I made me one similar to the Decker-Sinclair version but with a much heavier base to make it less portable but more secure....check for a "deep" C clamp and put a padded wooden square about 2.5 inch square on the flexable end of the threaded rod and affix the fixed-anvil of the C clamp to a fixed upright attached to the base....Home Depot/Lowes ect. has the DEEP C clamps with a 8-10inch working width and 8" depth....a padded block where the rear pistol grip of the stock is above the base lets you level the gun with the Vee front and centers the butt in the C clamp padded frame and anvil area....hobby shops have leather or recycle a old purse/case/jacket of leather...good luck and good shooting.....!

or do what I do and use a chair with some padding and throw a box on the floor to catch the patches

Thanks for the information. I'll see about trying it Bigdaddytacp's way first. But it's always good to have a quick alternative.
-Josh

I have been using a gun cradle like this for 25 years and it works well. I have three in the shop and could not work without them. They are not rigid enough for checkering but indispensible to me for any kind of assembly/dissasembly, cleaning or scope work.

Very interesting!
Thank You
-Josh