Wood question for Gunsmiths

F

Fireball Fred

Guest
First, i notice most questions in this forum is on metalsmithing a rifle. however my question is for gunsmiths that work wood. aprox 18 months ago i took 4 rifles to a smith ( that will remain private ) with pre inleted wood from richards (2) and great american gunstocks (2). he was to glass bed, cut to LOP and install pads, install swivel slings and apply a tru-oil finish. i called about the 12 month mark and he told me he was "thinking about it." :( then promised to get at least one finished by june. here it is august and still no response. :confused:
second, would i be pushing my luck to call and inquire how far he is in the project? should i expect this as average turnaround time for this kind of work or am i being shunted? i dont want to affend but i would really like to use these rifles before the year ends.
Last yes i know this kind of work can be done by an advanced hobbyist like myself. however the present constraints of my career has me against the wall so to speak. thanks in advance for any and all advise. Greg Moyer
PS yea i know free advise is worth every penny spent on it! ;)
 
I am not a gunsmith but I am very experienced in your predicament

Welcome to the world of gunsmith time . Sometimes it bears no relationship to normal time. Most gunsmith's I have dealt with in 25 years of BR shooting take longer than promised, but most are only a little over their estimates maybe 10-20 % . The best gunsmiths keep very busy. Unfortunately taking a long time to get your job done does not assure the person is a good Gunsmith.

I am of the opinion you need to have a serious talk with this person to see what your status really is.


Dick
 
thoughts

thanks for the input. that was my thoughts too. however i didnt want to be offensive. i have to just get back my parts and find one who is willing to get the projects done in a timely manner. Greg Moyer
 
A man is only as good as his word. If he's too busy to do a job all he has to do is just say so. I experienced a similar situation with the last smith I dealt with. He lied to me several times until I finally retrieved my property. He left Dallas, TX afterwards to pursue another carrier, he had been planning to do this all along.

It's been 18 months, I don’t care how busy a man is, that’s just excessive if you ask me. He's probably taken new work since you dropped off your stocks and delivered the same. I'd get my stuff, go else where and wouldn’t think twice about it.

My experience is what led me to buy a lathe and start doing my own work. I'm glad it happened and I'm better off this way, you will be too.
 
They should be close to their estimated time. My last wood stock rifle took 2 years. That was about his estimate. He stayed in touch through out the process. The time is not the problem for me if I know up front and if he has a problem he just needs to call me.

Butch
 
I'm not saying the smith should be dragging this out but, did you send some wood projects to someone that doesn't do much if any work on wood stocked rifles?
 
i have finished several Richards stocks. it takes about 2 weeks start to finish a couple hours a night after work. i would definetly be getting my stuff back. same reason i started doing my own smithing too. too much wait time and too much $$$$.
 
Fireball Fred said:
aprox 18 months ago i took 4 rifles to a smith ( that will remain private ) with pre inleted wood from richards (2) and great american gunstocks (2).)
Click to expand...

Besides the fact that I thought it was against the rules of this forum to emphatically knock a product "piece of crap!". I feel I must state the gentleman that started this thread had no particular problem with either "Richards Stocks" or Great American Gunstocks ,his problem is with his unnamed gunsmith. Am I reading the original post wrong ?
 
The Wood . . .

The problems you are having with the Gunnie is he is most likely overbooked his time, and you need to go and visit him and see to it that he is working on the job, or as some of the people have indicated - get the jobs back. As one of the post said, it will take you about 2 weeks to do one and do it right. You will need a Dremel, a 1/4" & a 1/2" chisel - really sharp, a few double cut files and a Mouse Sander with grits to 220 or finer if you can find them. Your problems with Richards is the exact reason that I started doing my own stocks. It takes me quite a bit longer than 2 weeks to do them - By Hand, but it is a much shorter time than what Richards or Boyds will do one for me. The last one out of Richards took over 8 months, it isn't all that bad, and some Acra-Glass will make it fit quite nicely. I did one from scratch and it took me about a month, Attached are a couple of pictures of what I started from and the finished product, actually it was a block of wood about 4"x8x48 and I bandsawed it to this before I took a picture of the block. Since the stocks are pre-inleted, get some Pression Blue and a chisel and keep bluing till it goes in, glass bed it "then" float the barrel, you will need a barrel channel tool from Brownell's. The Pre-inletted stocks go pretty quickly, the barrel chanel is the hard part. When you are finished with the receiver and barrel, start fitting it to you - file it or sand it with a sanding drum, and file it to finish and then spend a few hours with the Mouse sanding it. If you have an old scope around mount it and make the stock fit you to the scope. It is really quite rewarding to do it all your self, and you can work at your schedule and save some money to boot.

Phantom496
 

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Didn't mean to end this Thread . .

Sorry, I didn't mean to end this thread, I nocited no one has responded to this in a long time. I was just making a comment on the quality of some of the stocks being offered by stock makers, and the ability to do one yourself.

Phantom
 
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