Alumium, As a dear departed friend use to say, Stocks:

Pete Wass

Pete Wass

Well-known member
I have seen, over the past 10 or 11 years a few, what appeard to be a cast Skeliton stock at Benchrest matches. I haven't seen one in quite a long time but they always intrigued me.

I wondered why they weren't more popular? Can anyone shed some light on thos for me please?

Thanks,

Pete Wass
 
Because they are ugly, I know, because that is all I shot. But, they have their advantages;

-light weight to stiffness ratio, my sporter/lv's weighed a total of 15 oz. with 6 verticle stiffeners.

-absolute straight tracking capabilities because the tubular members were straight dimensioned.

-ability to glue and screw bed without pillaring.......etc..............Don

Pete Wass said:
I have seen, over the past 10 or 11 years a few, what appeard to be a cast Skeliton stock at Benchrest matches. I haven't seen one in quite a long time but they always intrigued me.

I wondered why they weren't more popular? Can anyone shed some light on thos for me please?

Thanks,

Pete Wass
Click to expand...
 
Don, yours weren't cast, were they? What I remember was made out of aluminum square tubing -- the basic unit of a little less than 1 inch (metric?), with 3 forming the fore arm. I though he asked about cast aluminum skeleton stocks -- I haven't seen those.
 
Not very comfy to shoot. Difficult (near impossible) to make weight in a limited class. Inordinate work to benefit ratio. Design changes difficult to make after the initial build.

That's a start...
 
4Mesh said:
Not very comfy to shoot. Difficult (near impossible) to make weight in a limited class. Inordinate work to benefit ratio.
Click to expand...

Phil, somewhere I have a photo of Don (shooting at the old Souhern California range) with one of his stocks. As he said, weight was about a pound. The fabrication didn't look difficult; depends on how much was epoxied, how much bolted together.

Difficult part from my end would be to find the metric tubing so I didn't have to sand stuff to keep it under 3 inches wide.

There were those who felt it ugly -- Honest to God, when I expressed interest, I got a phone call from Don Neilson begging me not to make one, just too ugly . . . (well, he was also trying to sell me a barrel block . . .)

If I do any more experiemnting, I think it will be with a "stock" built around a small, 3-inch barrel block and a skeleton butt. Forearm to be off a tensioning tube. But it's over 50-50 that my experimenting days are done. I could just tell Terry Leonard what I want -- a barrel block that will accept more than one action -- and he'd build it out of his composite woods. Pay and wait gets more and more attractive as the years pass.
 
Charles you are correct about the "cast" part and the tubing material, I some how missed that on my first read thru, thanks for the correction........Don

Charles E said:
Don, yours weren't cast, were they? What I remember was made out of aluminum square tubing -- the basic unit of a little less than 1 inch (metric?), with 3 forming the fore arm. I though he asked about cast aluminum skeleton stocks -- I haven't seen those.
Click to expand...
 
Charles E said:
Phil, somewhere I have a photo of Don (shooting at the old Souhern California range) with one of his stocks. As he said, weight was about a pound. The fabrication didn't look difficult; depends on how much was epoxied, how much bolted together.

Difficult part from my end would be to find the metric tubing so I didn't have to sand stuff to keep it under 3 inches wide.

There were those who felt it ugly -- Honest to God, when I expressed interest, I got a phone call from Don Neilson begging me not to make one, just too ugly . . . (well, he was also trying to sell me a barrel block . . .)

If I do any more experiemnting, I think it will be with a "stock" built around a small, 3-inch barrel block and a skeleton butt. Forearm to be off a tensioning tube. But it's over 50-50 that my experimenting days are done. I could just tell Terry Leonard what I want -- a barrel block that will accept more than one action -- and he'd build it out of his composite woods. Pay and wait gets more and more attractive as the years pass.
Click to expand...

I remember , years ago now, seeing pictures of Don's Aluneum stocked rifle, and on here I think. That was WAAAAY before the Tinker Toy and others that have come along. I though it WAAAAY COOL back then; someone who had the "Nads" to be different and inventive was my thinking.
 
As I look at that picture of Ron Marsden and his stock setup there, I can't help being impressed, not only with the stock itself, but, with the era in which this was done. With 5th axis machines, I can see folks today making something like that, but in his case, I have to assume a lot of that was done by hand. Unless he worked for some company that did seriously high end machining back in the day. I'm guessing that photo isn't B/W for effect.

Charles, now here you are talking about someone doing an aluminum stock in the 1 lb range, and that seems about as easy as having a 5th axis machine available to you in the 70's. Now, I'm not one of those who'd say something isn't possible (well, maybe for fun!), but that seems quite a stretch to me. I've owned 30" 1.450 PA LG's with a 6" 1.450 straight, 8.5" Bat, Burris BlackDiamond and had >1Lb to spare in the 16.5# class. So, I've done the light stock thing. Wow, that's impressive to do it in Alum. I would think it would be so flimsy it wouldnt' work, but, anythings possible. Interesting...

For those folks who talk about Alum stocks being ugly, I have taken great pride in how ugly my guns were. I actually like the idea of a gun that didn't have time wasted on aesthetics. Just show me the targets! A beautiful target shot with an ugly gun is even more impressive to me. But I'm weird that way. A nice target from a really beautiful gun, doesn't impress me for some reason. I don't know why.
 
Don and his stock...which I have generally referred to as a refugee from a screen door factory....BTW it works.
DoninRedondoandstock-copy.jpg
 
There are some very interesting metal/wood stocks in the classifieds.

I would think that a cast stock would be far more work than a stock machined from readily available alum stock. I investigated making some simple sandcast alum cylinder heads for Hodaka's and the process for making the mold is pretty involved.
 
crb said:
There are some very interesting metal/wood stocks in the classifieds.

I would think that a cast stock would be far more work than a stock machined from readily available alum stock. I investigated making some simple sandcast alum cylinder heads for Hodaka's and the process for making the mold is pretty involved.
Click to expand...

There are some existing. They look very conventional except for being highly skeletonized. I saw one for sale in the classifieds a couple of years ago but it was gone when I inquired.
 
Saw this skeleton stock in the NRA museum a couple of months ago. Interesting, is there anything new under the sun?

P1000121.jpgP1000120.jpg
 
Or... my 17lb Light Gun w/ integral tensioned barrel tube.

Jerry
 

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Jerry,

As a long-time user of tensioned barreled rifles, I like it -- except that IBS does not allow a mechanical rear rest. You probably *could* come up with a plain rear bad to take the butt, but it would be quite a bother.

I'm no longer sure whether both Pennsylvania and IBS ban a mechanical rear rest, or just IBS now. It is something anyone planning a stock should consider.

Do you have anything in the tensioning tube, or just air? If just air, any problems with heat?
 
Charles E said:
JI'm no longer sure whether both Pennsylvania and IBS ban a mechanical rear rest, or just IBS now. It is something anyone planning a stock should consider.
Click to expand...
PA still has a Light Gun rule for no mechanical rear rest. Must be a bag with no container, nothing attached.
 
John Kielly said:
4mesh,

I believe that Ron's stocks were cast.

John
Click to expand...
Hmmm, well, that pic that you linked above still looks like a big task, even to cast. There's not much to it, and I'm sure it had to make weight somehow. I'm impressed.

That was no job for the feint of heart.
 
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