question on wood movement

[Brian Jordan]

I had my barrel channel finished in my sugar maple stock. I started to slab off extra wood on the sides, still staying away from my final dimensions. I have approximately a 1/2" wood left on either side of my barrel channel. I was preparing to get the bottom of my stock roughed in for my rod channel. I have been keeping the (44"x 13/16" .40 cal. rice) barrel in the channel when I am not working on the stock. Yesterday I noticed that my barrel looked bent in the channel. I checked with a 24" straight edge, and sure enough it was bowed slightly.  I removed the very snug barrel and both barrel, and stock came back to shape.

 Now to my questions. I may be over thinking this, but once the forestock is to final dimensions I should have no problems..correct?

 I still need to remove a good 1.250-1.375" of wood from the bottom of the stock to prep for my ram rod groove and hole. I am concerned that things are going to be out of wack for drilling an accurate hole.

 Is this common for a blank to do this? The stock sat in my shop for a good month before I started any work on it. The wood is from Virginia, and I am in Pennsylvania. I was thinking a month should be good for the initial humidity adjustments. Maybe I was wrong. I do understand that the wood will be moving it's whole life as a rifle, but I am just concerned about the amount of movement I am getting at this early stage of the build.   

[bama]

I like to do my barrel channel and drill my ramrod before slabbing the sides down. This pretty much insures that the stock will not move to much while trying to keep the RR hole going where I want it to go. Seeing how you have already slabbed the sides down I would just tape the barrel in the stock very well and leave it set for a while to see if the wood conforms to the barrel. After a couple of days if things are still in a bind I would wet the stock forend heavely and let it set for a few more days. If this does not do it then you can apply steam to the forend and that should do the trick. I once did a half stock the moved about an 1/8" in the middle that I managed to get most of the bow out by the wetting and clamping method.

This stock had a very nice curl to it but the grain made a big bow in the middle of where the forearm was going to be. I knew I would get some movement out of it but I did not realize it would be that much. I choose my stocks more carefully now and try to stay away from any big sweeping grain in the forearm.

[Long John]

Many stock blanks have stresses in them that cause the stock to bend as wood is being removed.  Usually to combat this I profile the bottom of the stock BEFORE I slab-off wood from the sides.  Since that option is not available I would proceed with removing the wood from the bottom of the stock, being careful to leave plenty excess (1/4" or so) in the regin from the entry pipe to the butt.  It is quite possible that this wood is contributing to the bend.  That will reduce the strength of the forestock relative to the barrel and might relieve some of the bend.  Then I would reduce the sides to about 1/4" in thickness to further reduce the strength of the wood.  This should allow the barrel to "straighten" the stock.  I generally have my barrel pinned in the stock before cutting the ramrod groove and drilling the ramrod hole to ensure that everything is straight and referenced to the barrel.

Good luck.

John Cholin