Project

It wasn't me!

Okay folks, just because the thread will prompt me to get the work done faster, I'm going to go through some tweaking stuff on a new rifle.

I've bought a selected Anschutz 1913 in their new 1918 Precise stock. It looks like this:


I've got different sights on it, and my primary buttplate is different, but that's a pretty fair representation anyway. Now, the issue is that I really dislike the pro-grip material Anschutz are using for the pistol grip, and I'm not crazy about the plastic cheek-piece either. Seriously, I dislike them so much I initially ordered the older aluminium stock, which is just a vastly inferior product, but Intershoot were exceptionally accommodating when I decided to correct my madness, even though everything was already shipped from Germany, so big kudos are due to them on this one.

Now, the inspiration for this project is this photo, courtesy of Danish shooter Kenneth Nielsen:


That's one of his local shooters. I got in touch with Kenneth to see whether he knew how yer man had gotten the lovely walnut and pistol grip (and I'm sure people will agree it's a huge improvement over the gank factory grip) and he'd made them himself of a piece of lovely old walnut, so at the time, I put the idea out of my head, as I wasn't confident of my ability to do a decent job myself, and I ordered the older aluminium stock. Now later on, I got stubborn, and decided I'd just get off my hole and get the job done myself, one way or another, and corrected the order, so I'm currently awaiting the new rifle, and plan on changing out that furniture. Sparks has acquired sets of knife handle scales, including a piece of African blackwood, which he's sending my way and which should look like this:


That will form the cheekpiece (though I may need to cut a wee bit of aluminium to act as a base for it and pin it on, but that'll be part of the fun to come later). Now, I just have to sort material for a pistol grip. I'm going to go for a piece of blackwood again, but the blank will probably come from a piece like this, which is intended to be made into a pepper mill or something similar.


I have to say, it should be an interesting project, I just need to contact people about getting a decent price on a blank of the right size for the grip. I'll probably get a blank of cheap basswood at the same time, which I can carve by hand (and make lots of inevitable mistakes, which can be smoothed and padded out with plastic wood where necessary) then give the blackwood to someone with a CNC machine, with the basswood as a template, and then work on sorting the attachment to the stock, as I've currently no idea what sort of arrangement is in place. Will find out when I get it. In case anyone's interested, or has thought about doing anything similar, I'll post photos of the process and how I'm getting on along the way, and of course of the finished product. Looking forward to the challenge now.

Sparks

And I might throw in a few photos of my cheekpiece build along the way as well - I'm trying to get a better cheekpiece weld for my air rifle, and so far taking the saw to it in Kuortane has been okay, but not yet good enough:



So myself and IWM (and IRLConor) have gotten some blanks and have some carving plans for the future...

dCorbus

IWM, maybe have a chat with Enda Walsh at http://gunstocksireland.com/

He is doing some very interesting work with wood at the mo - Have seen a couple of his stocks (made from scratch apparently) there yesterday in the flesh and the quality of the workmanship is incredible. I know he's doing up a stock for a certain ezridax and there's already been a lot of interest in Enda's work. I'm thinking of getting him to make a couple of adjustments to my own prone stock on the anschutz.

I would hazard a guess that he has not yet done any ISSFy type work - but from what I've seen of his skills and workmanship, it should be well within his capabilities. I'd suggest you give him a shout and discuss what you want to do, and see if he can help you out.

It wasn't me!

dCorbus wrote: »

IWM, maybe have a chat with Enda Walsh at http://gunstocksireland.com/

He is doing some very interesting work with wood at the mo - Have seen a couple of his stocks (made from scratch apparently) there yesterday in the flesh and the quality of the workmanship is incredible. I know he's doing up a stock for a certain ezridax and there's already been a lot of interest in Enda's work. I'm thinking of getting him to make a couple of adjustments to my own prone stock on the anschutz.

I would hazard a guess that he has not yet done any ISSFy type work - but from what I've seen of his skills and workmanship, it should be well within his capabilities. I'd suggest you give him a shout and discuss what you want to do, and see if he can help you out.

I popped off an email, and he gave a rough price, but it was way too high for what I want, so once I have the materials I might talk to him then about doing it and see what he can do for me and what it'll cost. Once I have the rifle and bits and pieces, I can show him exactly what I'm trying to do, rather than stumbling through the whole affair blindly. How's that new rifle treating you anyway?

FLOYDSTER

With the cheek piece would you not just use the stick-on thin foam grip material??;)

I like the pistol grip idea though!!

clivej

I wouldn't have thought it would be to hard to make up as you already have the original pistol grip, and cheek-piece to work from.

As they say a workman is only as good as his tools so get yourself some good tools and you will soon have what you need.

It wasn't me!

FLOYDSTER wrote: »

With the cheek piece would you not just use the stick-on thin foam grip material??;)

I like the pistol grip idea though!!

I figure if I'm going to the trouble of making a pistol grip of African blackwood, I may as well have a nice matching cheek piece, and I do like the texture of wood better than plastics. Going to leave it only slightly finished so it remains nice and handy for maintaining head position without getting slippy.

clivej wrote: »

I wouldn't have thought it would be to hard to make up as you already have the original pistol grip, and cheek-piece to work from.

As they say a workman is only as good as his tools so get yourself some good tools and you will soon have what you need.

The original pistol grip is not great, to be honest. It's quite lumpy and coarse feeling. I'm actually going to be stealing a lot of the profile from the corresponding Walther and Feinwerkbau grips, which are excellent. I'm not very good at stuff like this, pretty much a leap into the unknown as I've not done any wood work or metal work before, so it should be interesting.

Half-cocked

It wasn't me! wrote: »

I'm not very good at stuff like this, pretty much a leap into the unknown as I've not done any wood work or metal work before, so it should be interesting.

The important thing is patience, lot's of it! Don't get carried away filing and sawing like mad. You can't really put material back on once you've taken too much off;). Beware of power tools - they can undo weeks of hard work in the blink of an eye if you aren't careful. I write from painful experience.

It wasn't me!

Half-cocked wrote: »

The important thing is patience, lot's of it! Don't get carried away filing and sawing like mad. You can't really put material back on once you've taken too much off;). Beware of power tools - they can undo weeks of hard work in the blink of an eye if you aren't careful. I write from painful experience.

Going to stick with manual tools and sandpaper as I've no experience with power tools. I'll get started on a dummy basswood blank probably when I get around to ordering the wood. I expect the biggest and meanest I'll be using is a small hand saw to cut rough dimensions, then a good, strong, sharp knife and sandpaper to finish it. Then I'll just need to find someone with a machine to do the job.

Sparks

Well, my Dremel's down the range if you want to use that IWM, it's slow enough for pistol grip work if you don't rush yourself (that's what I used on my Izzy pistol grip).

sfakiaman

Try makers of woodwind instruments for dalbergia melanoxylon (african blackwood) or woodturners suppliers. The bell (end bit) of clarinets are made from a size that might be of use to you. Be careful of the dust when sanding as all the dalbergias can be pretty nasty. If you need to build a bit up super glues work very well on this type of wood. If you sand the joint while the glue is still wet the dust and glue mix makes an almost invisible mix.