stock width at lock?

[Bill N]

A friend gave me a octagon to round, swamped  .72 cal barrel. The barrel is 1.25" at the breech, .860" at the waist, and .935" at the muzzle. I'm trying to decide what style of stock to put this in.  I've been looking at the precarved stocks from Pecatonica and the ones I like, such as the pre revolutionary Kentucky and the early Lancaster measure 1 3/4" at the lock panels.  I'm also considering the early full stock fowler which measures 1 7/8" at the lock panels.  My concern is whether or not an 1 3/4" stock is wide enough for that 1 1/4"  barrel. Is that going to leave to little wood in the breech area? I know I could start with a blank, but I'm not sure if I want to tackle that, I would prefer to go with a precarve.  What do you guys think?  Thanks.

[don getz]

Bill......you are looking at a bare minimum of wood, only about 1/4" on each side, and with a barrel that big at the breech it must have quite a bit of taper in the breech end...this would make even less wood to work with back toward the tail
end of the lock.  I think you would be better off to start with a full size blank.  I would send it to Fred Miller or one of the
other stock carvers and have him shape the butt to your liking and have them inlet the barrel....this would give you more
wood to play with............Don

[Bill N]

Thanks for the reply, Don.  You brought up a good point; I didn't think about the barrel taper kicking the rear of the lock out.  It might be real hard to fit that in there with out the rear of the lock plate standing proud above the wood.  Looks like a blank is the way to go. Thanks again. 

[B Shipman]

Bill, what Don is saying is that there is a difference between precarved stock makers, Pecatonica turns out a bunch at a time on a strict pattern.  What you're asking won't work. Fred Miller and a lot of others do things one at a time, and deal with the problem at hand. You have to choose something that's feasible, however.  A big German smoothrifle.  A musket . A big fowler.  Fred has more patterns than anyone.  I'd call , 12 to 1 EST, and discuss.  OR have the barrel and rod installed and  pattern band sawed and chop it yourself.
Just a matter of time.

[Stophel]

You're not gonna get any regular precarve, especially a Pecatonica, to accomodate that barrel.  If you don't want to inlet it yourself, you can have somebody like Fred Miller do it for you, as was suggested.  He's supposed to have some decent stock patterns, but I haven't seen any of them to comment. 

[LynnC]

This is a place where I HAVE to make an accurate top view drawing of the barrel and lock to determine what I need width wise.  Then give yourself a little extra for insurance.  In fact, I like to make scale drawings of the entire butt stock thru to the lower forend ( at least) to get everything worked out........................Lynn

[Acer Saccharum]

Is this a smooth barrel? Like, going to be a fowler? if so, you may not need the cheekpiece. Minimum 2 1/2" thickness.

If it's a rifle, and you want a cheekpiece, I'd be looking for a 3" blank/plank.

This is in my world, my rules may not apply in yours.