The Frankenstock design is DONE!

I had to work this morning, so I couldn't go to the Tacoma silhouette shoot. After work, though, I got to go out to my father-in-law's and we worked on the Frankenstock most of the day. All of the shaping, testing, and reshaping is done. All that's left to do is the sanding, priming, more sanding, more priming and then finish coats of paint and clearcoat. It feels AMAZING and I can't wait to get it done and get the barreled action in it so I can shoot it. My wife took the digital camera to take a pictures of the kids and didn't put it back, so I couldn't find it to take over with me and use today. I'll take pictures of the stock on Tuesday when I go over there to finish it up, though. I need to get it finished ASAP so I can figure out exactly how high I need my scope mounted. I'm as excited as a kid at Christmas and this isn't even my rifle I'm having Mark Pharr build.

Man - you're wrong.. To start a thread like this with out pictures?

Lame...LOL

Hehe.. that was on purpose. I'm building suspense.

As promised, here are the pictures. We didn't finish it today, as we ended up doing little tweaks here and there, sanding and smoothing little details. After all that, we started with one coat of fairly heavyweight primer and sanded that nearly back down to wood/bondo to get everything as smooth as possible. Then came the glazing putty to fill the little nicks and holes that the heavy primer didn't fill. After sanding that down, the first coat of lighter primer went on and is what you see here. If you look at the pictures, the areas that are a little more glossy are the ones that we didn't sand completely through the previous coat of heavy primer or glazing putty. After this first coat of lightweight primer dries, it will get the 0000 steel wool treatment to bring everything to the same level of matte finish. After an alcohol bath and drying time for that, another coat of lightweight primer gets put on. If that all dries to an even gloss, the first coat of metallic blue paint will go on, followed by a couple more and then two coats of gloss clearcoat. All of this is assuming we don't do any more reshaping, of course. That's where you guys come in.

When crafting the original design, I took the "hunting style stock" phrase in the rules to heart, along with the general ideas of features I liked from the real silhouette stocks. I looked at an assortment of hunting rifles that the two of us owned (Marlin, Savage, Remington, Sako, CZ) and tried not to deviate much from those designs, but still making it fit me and raising the cheekpiece up to nearly the center of bore line. After we finished all the rounds of adding, removing, shaping, and smoothing, I tracked down the pictures of the currently accepted silhouette stock designs and compared. I haven't changed the Frankenstock design at all due to those comparisons yet, but I'll comment on them after pictures of the Frankenstock and then post pictures to show what I'm talking about.

First, what the CZ 452 Varmint stock looked like originally.




Now, I present the first incarnation of the Frankenstock.










With the comparisons to currently accepted silhouette stock designs, I've found only a few details that differ to any significant degree. The first is the pistol grip. Mine is actually a little shorter than the one on the Pharr stock, just judging by the pictures. I don't have the sides dished out as much behind the pistol grip, though. After looking at all the actual hunting guns we have, we have way more that don't have it dished out but the Remingtons, a Savage, and a Sako do. It would be a simple matter to dish it out more and wouldn't change the functionality in any way (might actually lose a tiny bit of weight in the process). I don't know if it's necessary, though. Here's a picture of the pistol grip of a Pharr stock for comparison.



The next difference is in the left side cheekpiece. You can see this difference using the picture above, also. My cheekpiece has a much sharper corner on the bottom right. Again, this is purely a cosmetic thing and would be very simple to change.

The last difference I noticed was in the top of the comb on the right side. My stock has a little lip on it there, like the Anschutz 1712 stock, where we hollowed out a bit to make a smoother line into the top of the buttstock. After noticing this difference, I went back and checked for it on the hunting rifles. Sure enough, any that had high cheekpieces like that had the lip on them. That means this probably isn't an issue, but Pharr's stock drops down straight there. Here's a close-up picture of what I'm talking about on my stock, followed by a picture of the Anschutz 1712 from the right side for comparison.





That's it for the pictures and the comparisons. Is there anything with these issues or anything else here that any can see that could somehow disqualify the stock as not "a hunting style" of stock? That's my primary concern here. I want to make any shape changes now, while I'm still in the primer stage of putting a finish on it. It fits all the specific rules for both hunter and standard styles, but what a "hunting style" of stock is is up to the person running tech or sitting on the jury. Note that I'm considering removing a bit of material behind the pistol grip and rounding off the bottom right corner of the cheekpiece just for cosmetic reasons and the chance to save a tiny bit of weight. I'm probably not going to take any off the lip on the top of the right side of the comb unless I have to. I like the feel of it and the looks, too.

Ok, there you have it. Let's hear your thoughts.

Wow, that was quick. I've already gotten a couple questions about details of what was done to the original CZ stock. Here's a quick summary. Some wood was cut from the top and left side of the buttstock to provide for flat surfaces to attach the two pieces of wood that would be shaped into the cheekpiece. Another piece of wood was used to attach to the rear of the stock to length the pull and then the buttstock was recontoured so that it would flow correctly into the original buttpad. Almost three inches of the stock's foreend had been cut off years ago when it was used as a benchrest gun and it was borderline legal for the 8" required in front of the front receiver ring, so the foreend was cut off flat and a piece of wood was attached and shaped to match the foreend's existing contour, along with the barrel channel being cut into the new piece. Then everything in front of the pistol grip on the wide, heavy Varmint stock was slimmed and straightened, along with the foreend being given a much gentler bottom curve (I shoot splitfinger). Then various smoothing, shaping, Bondo additions and such commenced to build up the pistol grip, palm swell, etc., as well as smooth all the wood joints and such.

It really wasn't as hard as I expected it to be, but I had a very good woodworker/craftsman (father-in-law) doing a lot of the work. The stock feels great and I do indeed hold it steadier than the original stock. That said, I'm still ordering one of Mark's splitfinger stocks and having him bed the 1712 barreled action into it. This stock is much better than the factory stock, but is nowhere in the league of Mark's design. This CZ will go to my father-in-law as soon as I get the Anschutz and I might get a better barrel put on it before I give it to him. The factory CZ barrel isn't worthy of the stock it's in anymore.

If you're wondering why I call it the Frankenstock, then you should have been at the non-sanctioned Tacoma shoot I took it to. If you had seen the hacked up thing with various chunks of wood glued to it, you'd understand.

From the pics, it looks fine to me.

It's hard to tell about comb height and toe depth from pics. (You say that you checked comb-to-bore-centerline already. When you added to the LOP and recontoured the buttstock did you do anything that would bring the toe lower than 7" below bore centerline?) Those things don't matter in hunter but you need to consider them if you plan to shoot it as a standard.

The work looks very well-done...

The comb height to bore line was pretty easy to check. I just looked down the barrel from the muzzle end with the bolt out. I can see the comb, but it's not high enough to cross the center line of the bore. The forearm depth didn't get changed since we didn't add any material to that section, as I didn't want to have to deal with changing the relationship of the bottom metal to the action screws/magazine/etc. The forearm length issue had to be dealt with, as while it was just barely legal (8" in front of the receiver ring), it was too close for comfort and I didn't like the way it looked anyway. As for toe height to bore line, I can measure again to make sure, but when we put the spacer to correct the length of pull no material was removed from the top of the buttstock when making it fit the original buttpad. The top line at the rear there is the same top line it had before, so if it was legal before it should be legal now. It was done that way on purpose, so I wouldn't have to worry about doing any "check and re-check" measurements there like I had to do with the comb height.

Wow...Nice work. I can't wait to shoot it! LOL

Warning- Plan on saying "No thanks" to offers of making more..Ha-ha

Well- Unless your Father in law is looking for something to do with his spare time converting CZ stocks into Frankenstocks...LOL. PM me if you would like as I do have a really good duplictor resource if someone just persists!

I wish you had more pictures of the process, the end result is impressive.

Thanks for sharing,

Chicken

Very nice work Jason. I hope that I am capable of making a "frankenstock" half as nice as that one. I recently bought a CZ trainer stock to modify in a similar manner. I have a factory Varmint rifle to use as the donor action/barrell combo. I didn't want to modify the original stock, so I bought the trainer as a franken-donor. If mine turns out anywhere near as nice as yours, I'll be happy.

Have you weighed either the modified stock or the entire rifle/scope combo yet? I'm a bit concerned about going over weight with a frankenstock and my fairly lightweight Weaver KT-15/Burris signature zee combo.

Thanks for sharing the pics.

SteveM.

Jetmugg,

If you look at the top view of the stock, you'l be able to see where we routed out a channel in the foreend. We also hollowed a channel out of the buttstock. Those combined with removing quite a bit of wood to slim that monstrous Varmint foreend down probably helped the weight more than the additions of wood and Bondo hurt it. I don't know the exact comparison of the weight of the Frankenstock versus the factory stock weight, but I'm almost half a pound under the 8.5lb hunter class limit with a Sightron SII 24X and a fairly heavy mounting system using BKL model 266 riser blocks and BKL 274 offset scope rings. I plan to use the channels in the foreend and buttstock to add weight to balance the rifle to my tastes. I'll weigh the Frankenstock with nothing but the buttpad attached to it when I finish it up and post the weight of it.

Good luck modifying the trainer stock. You're giving yourself a little more work to do than modifying the varmint stock would, though. One of the reasons I chose to modify a varmint stock instead of the silhouette or a lux stock a friend offered was that it's a lot easier to remove material than add it. The varmint stock's foreend being so large let me just plane it off from about the bolt cutout forward to the exact dimensions I wanted and instantly be done with half the stock once I rounded it up a little. A Schabel foreend wouldn't be nearly so easy to deal with. The varmint stock also starts with a halfway decent palm swell and is beefier all around. Though I did have to add quite a bit to the palm swell and move it forward some in the process due to making the pistol grip drop down closer to vertical, having a lot of material there to work with made the job easier. Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to discourage you and it was a bigger heartbreak to hack up the nice walnut varmint stock, but it made a better platform for building.

GeoNLR wrote:Wow...Nice work. I can't wait to shoot it! LOL

Warning- Plan on saying "No thanks" to offers of making more..Ha-ha

Well- Unless your Father in law is looking for something to do with his spare time converting CZ stocks into Frankenstocks...LOL. PM me if you would like as I do have a really good duplictor resource if someone just persists!

I wish you had more pictures of the process, the end result is impressive.

Thanks for sharing,

Chicken

You can shoot it at Pe Ell if you want. It will still have the CZ action and barrel in it, though, so you'd probably get just as much or more out of just handling it. I do indeed already have several people wanting copies made. I have to concentrate on getting this one done and ready before Pe Ell, though. My father-in-law's technically retired but has a pretty long list of projects that would be ahead of any stockmaking work. He made half the furniture in my house and most of it in his. He does the same for the rest of the family, too, so he's fairly busy.

I'd definitely appreciate info/prices on getting this duplicated, though. I would prefer someone who could just take the design and copy it without inletting or be able to inlet for different actions. I have a .270 Winchester made from a commercial Mauser action from back in the '50s that I'd love to have in a stock that felt like this one made from a really nice chunk of walnut. I noticed that now that I have a stock that fits me like this one does and feel so great, I really hate my factory rifle stocks. Even the ones I thought were pretty good before feel like junk now. A duplicating service could save me a lot of work. I'm seriously considering selling off all the guns I have except for a couple rimfires, a couple centerfire rifles, a couple shotguns, and a couple muzzleloaders. Then I'd take the ones left and make them fit me like this one does. I'd have a lot less guns for the wife to complain about and would be a lot happier with them.

Jason:
Would you consider selling the factory Silhouette stock that you inletted for the Varmint action?

SteveM.

Well, to be honest, that's up to Ernie here. Since he's running tech at Pe Ell, if he thinks this thing as shown qualifies as a hunting style stock and that he might want to verify that it qualifies for the specific rules of the standard class rules, then I don't really need the factory silhouette stock anymore. You get first chance at it when I sell it, of course.

I don't want to be the arbiter of a sale here but, as far as I can see, there is nothing there that I would fail on a hunter check.

'IF' your bore centerline check is accurate -- and that should be, since it's a simple check -- then the comb height will pass for standard and the forearm certainly looks good.

Your method for determining the legality of the toe is confusing. I gather that you're saying that you didn't lower the heel and, therefore, since the length of the original buttpad is unchanged, the toe must still be within legal limits?

Assuming that the top line of the forearm is parallel to, and about centered on, the long axis of the bore (bore centerline) I'd just set the stock upside down on a table and measure the distance from the tabletop to the toe...
That has to be no more than 7".
(This needs to be 'close'. We're certainly not going to be using a micrometer to measure stocks but anything 'obviously' over 7" in depth will require that we dig out a rod and make a clean measurement.)

It looks to me that you've done it very well. That said, keep in mind that a competitor can always challenge you or your equipment and throw it to the jury. (But, with Greg's interpretation of the stock rule, I wouldn't expect a jury to fail what you show in your pics unless there's something very strange about the camera angles.)

Sorry, Ernie. I didn't state that very clearly. What I was saying is that I didn't change the topline of the front half of the stock, anything about how the action sits in the stock, or the topline of the buttstock behind where the cheekpiece meets it. That means the top of the buttstock now is in the same place relative to the bore as it was when the gun came from the factory (or possibly up to 1/32" lower since the original topline had a very slight slope). Since I shaped the bottom side of the buttstock to fit the original buttpad without changing the topline, the bottom end of that buttpad now is still the same distance off the boreline that it was. It's just 7/16" of an inch or so farther back from the action.

This will be easy enough to measure for sure when I get back to the shop where the stock is. I can sit the stock on the buttpad and look down the bore with the bolt out. Then I can mark a place on the floor that's the center of the boreline and then mark the bottom tip of the buttpad. Then I can move the stock out of the way and measure the distance from those two points. This will work better than just judging by the topline of the front of the stock, as that's actually a little higher than the boreline. I found this out the hard way. If you look at the top picture of the stock, you'll be able to see that the comb is parralel to the topline of the front of the stock, but is actually a little lower. I had originally shaped the comb with the assumption that the topline of the front of the stock was about the center of the boreline and had everything all smooth and pretty. Then I checked it with the action in the stock, looking down the bore. The comb was about 1/8" too high and I had to take that much off the whole cheekpiece to keep it the shape I liked. I was serious when I said that I don't like to push rules, not even a little bit.

I appreciate you throwing the word "close" in there, but when I'd rather be sure my equipment follows the rules and not have to worry about stuff like that. It was the same situation with the foreend length. It technically had the required 8" in front of the receiver ring, but just barely. I mean it was within 1/16" of being too short. No one would have ever noticed it, but adding the piece up there was simple enough that I'd rather not have something like that in my head when I'm trying to shoot.