I have been checking out the old german rifles.What are the side panels good for?Some stocks have them, some dont.I handled a orbendorf style stock that had side panels and kinda liked it.Are they there for decoration or do they serve a purpose or is it just a style thinggie?They were popular before my time.If you had a choice would you prefer side panels on a new custom stock or without side panels?Iam in the process of building a obendorf style stock and will have the side panels to keep with tradition.Its going to be my mountain rifle.What year were the side panel style stocks built?Early 1900?Just wanting to catch up on my stock style history.i like old guns...is the style exclusively german/alpine or just a traditional european style?Great american gunstock has a pattern like the one iam trying to describe.side panels look to me like you would love or hate them.Thanks in advance for the help.

As I have heard it told, the panels were thought to increase the strength in the receiver area of the otherwise slim German stocks.

They later found that it was useless for that purpose, but some kept up the practice because they liked the look.

I think its pretty safe to say that it’s purely cosmetic...and you either like the look or you don’t.

I was kicking around having a stock turned with panels, but changed my mind, or at least for now.

For what’s it’s worth here is what Roy Dunlop says about side panels in his chapter on stock design:

“The sides of the stock should never be paneled. Those flats some of the more backward German stockmakers featured were not supposed to be decorative anyway—they were an excuse to leave enough wood around the action to hold the gun together, while the butt and forend were slimmed down to toothpick proportions to make an exceedingly light rifle.â€

page 485, Gunsmithing by Roy F. Dunlap, Stackpole Books 1950.

Thanks for the replys.I did a search on side panels and found more info.Some of you guys have some very nice rifles with side panels stocks.Hanging around here can make you wiser!I have learned a great amount here.Thanks!

They certainly are distinctive. I like em.
Don

My "Project Mauser #2" will be "guild build" using a Fajen German guild pattern stock (Midway sold them) I picked up here on AR. I'm gonna leave the side panels on (I like them), along with aperture sights, butterknife bolt handle and possible double set triggers. Chambering will probably be either 257 Bob or 6.5x55.

"Project Mauser #1" is a scoped working field rifle with a sythetic stock, probably a 30-06, maybe a 9.3x62.

Hey Blakhawk, if you are going to build a rifle as "German" as that, surely you should fit a German cartridge: 6.5x57, 7x57, 7x64, 8x57S, 9.3x62 or any other of a number of specific German cartridges.

The 6.5x57 will do exactly what the 6.5x55 will do.

Ah well, your rifle, your choice.
- mike