The neighbor kid was over this morning. (OK he is a 36yr old firefighter but everyone is starting to feel like a kid)

Sorry back to the question. He has a couple 95% stocks that he received from his dad after he passed. He was looking for someone to fit, finish and checker them for him. As I said a firefighter so funds are somewhat limited.

He had asked about a Claude Gatewood in Ohio. He has seen his website. I have no clue about Gatewood so I thought I would ask you guys. Or if you have someone else you would suggest I know he would appreciate it.

He sure is a heck of a neighbor for this old guy.

Paul, I would look at Clint Meier as well. I do not know about Mr. Gatewood except by reputation, which is good. Clint does very nice work at a reasonable price. Have the kid call.

CGM Checkering

quote:

He had asked about a Claude Gatewood in Ohio. He has seen his website. I have no clue about Gatewood so I thought I would ask you guys. Or if you have someone else you would suggest I know he would appreciate it.

I had a stock that was checkered by Gatewood and the checkering was very good for the money spent. However the same individual that I bought the gun from, who did all the inletting himself and built many semi-custom guns previously, had also used Claude for inletting on another stock previously. (As did a good friend of his). While this was many years ago, after they recieved the inletted stocks back from Claude..they knick named him "Claude Gape-wood."...

Again, this was several years ago and I suspect his inletting work has likely improved. However, those are the experiences I can share with you. I will post pictures of his checkering when I can.

JC

I'm sure that you'll get many good recommendations, I would like to put in a plug for Ahlmans gun shop in Morristown, MN. Good communication, excellent workmanship, fast turnaround and reasonable pricing.

This is an example of Gatewoods work on the gun I owned.

JC

Checkering is good not quild but good. Looks like one or two lines messed up

quote:

Originally posted by ramrod340:
Checkering is good not quild but good. Looks like one or two lines messed up

As I mentioned, all of the work on this gun was done on the cheap as the original owner liked to do some stockwork himself and just general liked to build semi-custom guns as a hobby. Given what the guy put into the rifle, (well under $2K metal, wood and woodwork etc), it came out pretty nice.

For a cheap project gun I think Gatewood did it justice.

JC

JC
The rifle looks very nice. Pretty wood. I think you got a very good buy. I was simply looking over the checkering in detail. He appeared to stop very well with minimal if any over runs. It just looked like to me that the spacing on two of his lines were off a little. Might have been the lighting on the picture or my old eyes.

Claude Gatewood does do some nice work. I can't speak about his checkering, but I have a classic sporter style stock on my ruger 10/22 that is top notch. He is well spoken of on rimfirecentral. Word was he was not doing very much work right now, something about regular income and steady work (aka real job). Don't let that discourage you, as that is only the word on the street.

You can bang for your buck out of a nice stock on a budget if you stay away from checkering. Good checkering is not cheap, neither is a good wood stock, but you can get a nice one reasonably.

Claude may do great work. However he asked for copies of the stock before he would quote a price. Pictures were sent on the 25th and we haven't heard back. So you might be correct and he is working somewhere and this is now a side business. We will see what happens.