Stock width

[Old Ford2]

Hey Guys,
I have the chance to pick up a nice piece of walnut  1 3/4" X 28 X 61" at $50
Is it too narrow for a fowler?
Never made one, never held one!
Please help.
Old Ford

[P.Bigham]

 It would depend on what style of Fowler your making. size of barrel you would use. Any cast off, and how wide of a butt plate you plan on using. I would prefer 2.5 minimum

[Ben I. Voss]

For fifty bucks buy it and worry about that later! It sounds a little thin to make a fowler, but it could make a Tennessee rifle I'll bet. For $50. I'm sure you can find a use for it.

[Rasch Chronicles]

That's an interesting question, and I'm sure lots of folks would be interested in knowing what the minimum widths for different styles should be.

I've been checking a lot of different wood suppliers, and 8/4 rough sawn is easier to get than 10/4 is. As my next project after the Fowler will undoubtedly be an obnoxiously heavy barreled 45 or 50 caliber chunk gun, I am looking for a suitably heavy chunk of wood, hence the search for 10/4.

Anyone care to ellucidate on the topic?

Best Regards,
Albert “Afghanus” Rasch
The Rasch Outdoor Chronicles™
A Chronicles’ Project: How to Smoke Fish!

[Acer Saccharum]

It sounds very narrow to me, even if you make a late poorboy out of it, that width doesn't give you much wiggle room.

Tom

[keweenaw]

Any earlier style rifle with a cheek piece will require 2 1/2" minimum of clean wood for convenient work an early Dickert is hard to make without 2 3/4"  For some late half stocks without cheek pieces or very trim mountain rifles one could get by with a full, clean 2" if you were very careful on layout.  Both of these thickness would be for a hand built stock, if the stock is to be duplicated it will have to be thicker to start with.  While most of us like to be cheap and go find stuff to use, it really makes little sense to not buy an appropriately dried, ready to use blank from one of the stock blank guys as the plain pieces of wood are really inexpensive.

Tom

[Roger Fisher]

Too skinny unless you go with a skinny barreled straight stocked no cast off or on no cheek pieced poor boy.  Is she planed both sides or rough cut.   So why start with a problem right outta the gate?  Boy's rifle maybe!

[Robby]

I like a challenge, making due with what you have. You could make a Vincent, no problem.
Robby

[Swampwalker]

You should be able to do a later style 'Kentucky' fowler, with a slender barrel.  Your butt plate is the limiting width, and you could easily find or modify one to stay under 1 3/4 inches.  With a slender comb, you don't need much cast off either.

[longcruise]

Probably be a good candiate for a youth gun (or 2) with 3.4 or 13/16 barrels.

[T*O*F]

The formula for a straight stocked rifle is very simple:
2 times bolster thickness plus barrel width across the flats.

This gives you the width across the lock panels.  If you have a piece of wood that is thin, you reverse engineer it.  2 times bolster thickness minus thickness of wood equals max barrel size.

I have a Gillespie on the bench that is 1-9/16" at the lock panels.  It has a 1" barrel and a Chamber's Ketland lock.  This is a 16th thinner than your piece of wood.  You have ample room to build any number of combinations.

[keweenaw]

TOF's formula is correct for straight, not swamped barrels  The tails of the lock panels will flare out more than that depending on the degree of swamp in the barrel.   But you have to remember that most wood you just go buy will not be dry enough for building a stock and it has to be straight with no twist in it to make this all work. 

Tom

[Old Ford2]

Thank you all for the information.
As to the wood "BUMMER", nice piece of wood, it will make a nice gun case though
Old Ford