stock question

[jeager58]

I was going to order a precarved stock from dunlap. my barrel wont be in for 12 weeks. should I wait til I have the barrel before I get the stock. I have heard that some builders like to keep the barrel in the channel to keep it from warping...phil

[pathfinder]

Enough wood will be taken off the forestock that warping isn't an issue. I was really surprised at the wait times for some barrels.
I've been out of the serious side of building for a while due to surgery's and life for @ 10 years,and remember I could get darn near any barrel profile and caliber with a couple of phone calls. Now I came across two swamped barrels at a trade fair(1-42",1-44" both .50) for a really good price and was asked numerous times if I wanted to sell 'em as I walked around the show.
Are there that many builders out there or is it something else causing the long wait?. What happened to De-Hass and Orion Barrels? Is it just Rice,Getz and Colrian left?(I've used and LOVE all of them!)

[Paddlefoot]

Get the stock blank and let it sit in you shop until the barrel comes in. Adjusting for your local climate can only help you.

[Don Getz]

We used to have a lot of Isaac Haines kit stocks done by Bob Lepley.   One thing I found out,...if you didn't have a barrel
to stick into that stock right away, the inlet would close up, especially in the foregrip area where that square block of wood was left on.   I made a special scraper to take care of that.............Don

[Herb]

I fit a one-inch dowel (hardware store) into the barrel channel and tape that tight so the forestock can't warp.  If a swamped barrel, I'd rasp a piece of 3/4" pine down to fit the flat of the bottom of the channel and tape that to keep the forend straight.  You expect to have to scrape the edges to get the barrel into the channel.

[jeager58]

thanks for the info...phil

[alex e.]

I just spent last Sat  evening  refitting barrels to stocks that had been left unmated .One a TOW fusil that a gentleman sent me to work on, was pretty new.The forestock had a belly in it already.
One from a R.E. Davis parts set that had been sitting[I'm guessing a year or more]
Lots of swelling in that one.
Set the barrels as soon as its inlet.
Those are two recent examples...

Alex.