Gents,
I have a couple projects in the finishing stages,,that is I am setting actions into semi(not) inletted stocks. Scary stuff here as I really don't want to butcher a nice piece of wood.
Is there someone here that specializes is this type of work or at the least can sorta give me a few tips ? Help ......45nut

Inlet the trigger guard first.

45nut---

The first thing I'd recommend is to buy "Restocking a Rifle" by Linden.

The second thing would be to buy a stock blank, not a semi. By making a couple or three from a blank first you learn stockmaking......then the semi-inlett can save you time. Without the basic inletting skills first you just tend to screw up semis.

I've learned to let the pros do the inletting. The money you will have saved on liquor and therapy will more than cover their fees.

I concur with Jack. A friend gave me a semi inletted, semi finished stock for a mauser. I know the reason is that he figured that there was no way a decent looking stock could be salvaged out of it. I need to provide before and after pics to make the point about what I started with. Scroll down near the bottom. http://66.223.12.101/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=46;t=000010

The pictures are pretty crappy, but I'm by and large happy with the results.

Anyhow, my advice is to start with a decent piece of wood, not top grade, but not firewood. It takes just as many hours to make a stock no matter what type of wood you start with. If you start with a crappy piece of wood, you won't be motivated to put the time in to do a decent job. If you do a decent job, then you'll have wasted alot of hours on a plain looking stock.

The toughest thing for me was having the confidence to hog most of the wood out before starting to go slow. If you start with a scraper first, as I did, you'll get really frustrated with the lack of progress. Then again, if you start with the dremel and chisel, you're likely to be unhappy with too rapid of progress.

As was mentioned, you need to start with the trigger guard/magazene (assuming a bolt action) as this is the foundation that the barreled action attaches to. Another tip when inletting the barreled action, actually the mag as well, the only wood you see is the line between the wood and metal. All the wood under and behind that is unseen, so you can hog away, but leave that last 1/8-1/4" where you need to take the time and fit it right.

I gurantee that you'll learn two things. One, that the little boo boos that you'll make and cause you grief will never be seen by your buddies (unless their huge) and when you look at a factory stock, you'll be amazed at what a clunky poorly fit stock they provide with their rifles.