I need some help. I have a ruger 96/44. Great little handy woods carbine. The problem is the stock sucks. It is your plain jane hardwood stock with that funky curved butt. I am looking for someone to make a sporter style stock in red and black laminate for it. I have a local stock maker who will do the inletting and finishing but not the actual stock making. So I just need a semi inlet stock for this action. The only lead I have found is Wenig. They list a stock for the 96 lever action but do not say what caliber. And since they don't answer email or the phone I am getting a little pissed with them and would like some other options to try. Thanks for any imput.

As much as I hate to recommend them...since you want a red/black laminate I would call Richards Micro-Fit.

If it is not a bolt action Richard's Microfit won't touch it.

Have you considered buying a red/black laminated blank from Richards and having that blank turned and inletted for the rifle by someone else?

If you have an old bolt action stock that you can scrap you can hog out the inletting and epoxy your barreled action into to it and make your own pattern stock that you can have duplicated from any blank you buy.

Getting the blank is the easy part. But I can not find anyone who will make up the stock. Unless I have a perfect stock to stick in the duplicator I am out of luck. For some reason noone wants to do any custom work unless it is for a bolt action. The onlt difficult part of making this stock is get a good fit between the lever and the pistol grip portion of the stock. I am not handy enough to make up something to be duplicated. Me and machinery are not a good mix. I am missing the fingers to prove it. So it looks like my search continues.

Mike,
not being rude, just letting you know why

just about anyone can copy a stock for a cnote or 2.. but making a totally one-off pattern is actually money.. let's say that you wanted even a gag sporter pattern... that would be 125 for the pattern... call it 300 to make the pattern to work, then 150 to turn it...

and yeah, it would be hard not to ask you to pay for the pattern work, as there's not alot of call for it, and between 10-20 hours to cobble it together..

and then it MIGHT look cobbled, unless I ran a test stock (75 bucks) to see what it would look like and if it would fit you...

600 for making and proving the pattern, 150 for turning it... and it's not something I would want to do even for 750... sorry

jeffe

jeffeosso:I apperciate your honesty. I have not gotten much from others. Usaully it is just a quick no when I ask and no explaination. Since you seem to have a clue as to what you are doing I have another question. The factory stock is fine except for the butt section. Would it be possible to duplicate a stock to a certain point using one stock then switching to a different stock to complete the final section of the stock. I know there would still be some hand work to blend the two sections. But would this be a feasible option? Again thanks for all the help and honesty.

If your stock is fine except for the butt just use it as a pattern and tell the guy turning it to not worry about going past a certain point.

You gave the impression that you wanted an entirely new styled stock...and that would mean creating a new pattern from scratch, which may be why you have gotten a bunch of evasive answers from guys.