OK,

What is your opinion of Great American Gunstocks. Quality, pricing, inletting Etc.

http://www.gunstocks.com/

Avoid them like the plague. Unethical, poor quality. I've personally had two very bad experiences. See previous posts specifically about them.

Ditto fla3006.

Don’t waste your money or your time with GAG stocks. I bought four from them and will NEVER buy another.

Trust me, any drunken teenager with a chain saw could turn out a better stock for you. This company, in my opinion, has really poor quality control. It is obvious that they seldom change router bits, check or adjust the settings on their duplicators, or check the level of the stock to the cutter heads.

Do yourself a favor and find a nice piece of wood and send it to someone like Jeff who actually takes pride in the stocks that come off his machine.

I greatly respect fla3006's opinion, but I've had pretty good luck with them. I've bought four from them and three were great and one was a disaster. The one that was bad I should've sent it back but, I tried to save it. I'm just a novice, if I'd known better I would've had Henry re-do it.

One thing you've got to keep in mind is these are just rough cut blanks and I do mean rough. You have to do a lot of shaping and in-letting to get them right. One good thing about them is they leave a lot of extra wood in the inlet. I've never had one that had gaps between the barreled action and the wood.

Here are a few pics of what I've bought from them.

M70

Mexican Mauser

1909 9.3X62 Mauser Stock should have been sent back. See the small patch? I tried to repatch it it with a piece of wood scrap only to find out it had a deeeep soft spot in the stock. I still haven't done anything else with the rifle.



This one is a mauser stock. I haven't done anything with it either , but it's a good one.

Like I said these are rough turned blanks but, they can be made into nice stocks. Not heirlooms, but nice stocks.

Terry

if you go into that KNOWING you are getting a pattern, its not bad... Thanks Rick, I certainly do take alot of pride in my stocks..

the last stock I received from gag was .220 out of center, canted, on the top, about .3 out of alignment on the bottom, and from mrytle wood... I had told henry I wanted it for a pattern, so he sent me a chewed piece of scrap and charged me full price.. it was 2 months and a call to my credit card company to get resolved.

HOWEVER, their $$ and wood grade is a little more in line with what "Real world" stockmakers would think of as accurate.

I have used a couple of their stocks... and, well, they make GREAT patterns... when I was learning my machine, I used stocks finished better for bbq wood and checkering practice

that's not being arrogant, as I actually did that

jeffe

Jeffe, What Mauser patterns do you have? Any pics? I've been in touch with Mike and still need one more.

Terry

Thanks for your feedback. I'm only looking for a 90-95% shaped and inletted blank. I have found that I can take it from there and build an acceptable rifle. (as long as I leave my checkering tools in the drawer) But I'm not worth a $hit at doing the first 90%.

I had used Fajen and Bishop in the past. Who would you recommend nowdays.

quote:

Originally posted by TC1:
I greatly respect fla3006's opinion, but I've had pretty good luck with them. I've bought four from them and three were great and one was a disaster. The one that was bad I should've sent it back but, I tried to save it. I'm just a novice, if I'd known better I would've had Henry re-do it.

One thing you've got to keep in mind is these are just rough cut blanks and I do mean rough. You have to do a lot of shaping and in-letting to get them right. One good thing about them is they leave a lot of extra wood in the inlet. I've never had one that had gaps between the barreled action and the wood.

Terry

Terry,

Count your lucky stars, and have faith in the fact that even a blind squirrel finds an acorn every now and then!

The stocks I got from GAG had beautiful color and grain...I just couldn’t make a stock from them due to all the cockeyed inletting and twisted wood.

Fair enough

Terry
The blind squirrel

The biggest problem I had was with customer service, or lack thereof. In the course of two orders I received three stocks, all of which were unusable. Not just because they were rough, but because the inletting was ruined to the the point that I had to bondo and glass bed my barreled action and use one for a pattern. The surfaces were also badly chipped and gouged below the surfaces to where they could not be used, unless filled and used as a pattern.

I’ve never run a duplicating machine, but I’ve set up milling machines, lathes, table saws, and routers before, and it doesn’t take you long to figure out that the workpiece and the cutting implement must be in proper relationship to each other, and that cutting tools sometimes need to be changed and/or cleaned and sharpened!

Obviously, these simple facts have been ignored by allot of the stock making companies out there, especially GAG and Boyd’s. Boyd’s is a bit better than GAG...but not much.

It’s fairly easy to see that on the rare occasions that someone at these places actually checks the level and squareness of the bit to the work piece that they only do it on one end and NEVER check it for the entire length of the run, and I doubt that they ever check for wear on their pattern stocks or in their holding jigs.

I bought one from Henry in the mid 90's after meeting him at the NRA show in Seattle. I told him I wanted it for a pattern and the quality of the wood did not matter. What did matter is that there was wood gone where it should not be gone and too much where it shouldnt have been (not much of a problem in this area). I should have just tossed it but I spliced wood on the toe line of the stock and several other places. I was not impressed.

GAG is more than their initials.

GAG supposedly offers a H&H or Rigby type English standard length Mauser express style pattern with drop box magazine, low iron sight comb with Continental cheekpiece that I would very much like to have. Jeffe has one but w/o the drop box magazine. Does anyone else offer this pattern? Maybe D'Arcy? Thanks.

I've had a couple of GAG turned stocks, so figured I might as well throw my 2 cents in. I'm not a big fan of them, but I won't run them in the ground either.

I understand them to have multispindle machines set up for turning more than one stock at a time. I also understand they do not do a lot of changeing of cutters and etc which both lead to some of the roughness/not very exact.

But as one of the other guys said, they typicaly leave a lot of wood. And the price for a piece of wood and getting it turned is not that bad if a guy is watching his money.

I think a guy making stocks for a living or wanting something top end, they are not who to go to. But for a first timer that doenst want to spend an arm and leg and get a nice piece of wood for a fair price its not all that bad of choice. They do leave a lot of wood and if a guy can inlet a GAG stock he can just about inlet anything

I visted their shop in Yuba City and picked out the one I wanted for my 1909 Argentine Mauser. They did a good job of inletting and bedding, and I did the final finishing.

Fla3006,

I know the guy that turns my stocks (Mike Kokolus) has many differnt mauser patterns.

I know he one with drop, panels, snab forend and with and without panels and snab, about 4 variations of the same pattern. Not sure if he has one with drop box but bet he does. He told me once how many patterns he has, I can't remember how many, but I do remember it was mind boggling. If you want to call him let me know.

Mexican Mauser


Believe it or not, I recognize this rifle from a recent auction. Hard to miss the exaggerated pistol grip.

quote:

Originally posted by Gringo Cazador:
I've had a couple of GAG turned stocks, so figured I might as well throw my 2 cents in. I'm not a big fan of them, but I won't run them in the ground either.

I understand them to have multispindle machines set up for turning more than one stock at a time. I also understand they do not do a lot of changeing of cutters and etc which both lead to some of the roughness/not very exact.

But as one of the other guys said, they typicaly leave a lot of wood. And the price for a piece of wood and getting it turned is not that bad if a guy is watching his money.

I think a guy making stocks for a living or wanting something top end, they are not who to go to. But for a first timer that doenst want to spend an arm and leg and get a nice piece of wood for a fair price its not all that bad of choice. They do leave a lot of wood and if a guy can inlet a GAG stock he can just about inlet anything

Boy, I would respectfully disagree that GAG leaves lots of wood on their stocks. My experience has been just the opposite with the ones I got from them. A Springfield sporter I got from them was so chewed up and twisted in the butt stock area that by the time I got down to decent wood and straightened everything up I had to grind and file the butt plate down to fit what was left because it was so narrow. This was the second stock I got from them because I sent the first one back due to inletting that was so loose you could slide a quarter along the sides of the action between the wood and metal.

My hat’s off to anyone who has gotten a decent stock from them and had good service...but they lost my business forever due to their inferior product and nasty customer service people who act like you’re bothering them when you call.

The stock the did for me sucked and they're crooks.

Rick,

Sounds like you have good reason to be displeased. One thing I failed to mention was I used them twice, but do not use them anymore. As I stated, I'm not to big a fan of them. I used them a couple of times but that was it. Too many other guys in the business that are very good. Mike Kokolus does mine, he is great and a very nice guy to deal with.

I recognize that mex mauser too . I didnt like where the scope base holes were on the front ring.

I will guess thats a GAGs British stalker with the long grip.

I have 1 GAG, Gary Goudy style had to send one back because they removed too much wood on the toe. The one I finally got back(months later) I dont like either because they cut to much wood off the toe line also after I told them several times to leave extra wood there.

I guess I have to come down in the minority. I have bought a lot of stocks from them. You just have to realize that you are getting a generally gun shaped piece of wood, and that's fine with me. I wouldn't recommend this for a first timer. The reason I have bought several is that I think you can get the most bang for your buck with their wood. I tend to just watch the bargain stocks they list and buy from them. Their idea of premium wood seems to be odd. Some of their real expensive wood I don't tend to like, and some of their moderately graded wood tends to be very attractive. They have some real woood bargains if you keep watch.

quote:

Originally posted by Gringo Cazador:
Rick,

Sounds like you have good reason to be displeased. One thing I failed to mention was I used them twice, but do not use them anymore. As I stated, I'm not to big a fan of them. I used them a couple of times but that was it. Too many other guys in the business that are very good. Mike Kokolus does mine, he is great and a very nice guy to deal with.

If they would just get their duplicator machine serviced and keep it maintained properly...and fire the A-Holes that answer their phones... they would be great! I have a 1898 Krag sporter stock I got from them and the color and grain pattern on the wood is gorgeous.

They are obviously turning out enough stocks to dull the crap out of their router bits and knock their machine out of aligment...so you would think they are making enough money to maintain their equipment so they can sell a decent stock.

Don't buy a Richard's Microfit, either. I did and my gunsmith has had to charge me enough to straighten it out that I could have bought the most expensive McMillan (several times over) and used the rest to buy the dies, sizing bushings, bullets, cases, powder measure, powder, cleaning rods, gun cleaner and a host of other things. No lie: the stock will have $1150 worth of work in it and $200 to buy it plus $85 to install recoil reducers before my greasy hands get to despoil its clearcoat, epoxy-like finish. I wanted something unique-- and I'm paying for it. If you want to keep $1000 in your pocket, don't go the Richard's route. You have been warned.

I bought one from these guys ......... and my biggest grip is that the inletting is a bit sloppy .
The outside shaping is oversized which to me is fine because I like to have extra wood to work with and make the gun into what I think it should look like .
But I don't think I'll be buying anymore from them unless the price is perfect .......
I'm looking at making up a few patterns in te future !!!!!
Allen