Ramrod channel

[Red Owl]

When making a stock from a blank piece of wood how do most of you make the channel in the forward part of the stock for the ramrod?  A round chisel/gouge? A router? Something else?  If the ramrod is 3/8" should the cut be 3/8"? 

 

[rich pierce]

I use a gouge and a cut off round file, but am looking for a plane.  I make it the same diameter as the rod.

[Bill of the 45th]

3/8 router, then a ramrod drill.  Go slow with the drill.

Bill

[Benedict]

I use gouges, a small shop made round plane, rat tail file, pieces of ramrod with sand paper wrapped around and sometimes a long board that had been rounded over and wrapped with sandpaper.  I am scared of using power tools and besides don't like the noise.

Bruce

[Curt Larsen]

With a good true stock blank with a squared fore end, I use my router table to rout the channel to proper depth and then use a ramrod drill of correct size.  I make the channel the same diameter as the ramrod.  I also do them by hand using a chisel to bring it down to near the final depth and then use a scraper to round out the bottom of the channel and finish it off with sand paper around the proper sized piece of ramrod.  I then use the ramrod drill.  I do the slowly by hand with a brace and pull it out frequently to get rid of chips.  I'm hesitant about using an electric drill on this.

Curt

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

I use a gouge to cut within the laid out lines.  Then I use 80 grip cloth abrasive around the rounded edge of a slat of wood so that the finished dimension of abrasive and wood is just short of the size of the channel I want.  I always manage to cut the groove larger than my sander.  This is a .45 cal rifle.  the rod blank started out at 7/16", tapers in the first four inches to 3/8", and then to 5/16" inside the rod hole.  You can see the board and abrasive cloth in the lower left of the last picture.
Or, have David Rase do it when he inlets your barrel.  You will not regret it.

[Red Owl]

Thanks everyone for the help.  Couple of more questions.
1. When working from a blank the front of the stock will be thinned down on the sides.  I was planning to first cut the ramrod groove and drill the ramrod hole and then thin the sides afterward.  On the other had the sides could be thinned down before cutting the ramrod groove. Is one method preferred over another?
2. Drilling the ramrod hole.  A long time ago I read a book where the author put in the ramrod pipes and then used them as a guide to drill the ramrod hole however that doesn't seem to be the way most of you do it.  How do you hold the ramrod drill is place? Do you use some some of clamp over the top of the drill shank? I was thinking about drilling a 3/8" hole in a short section of wood and sawing it in half and clamping the halves over the drill shank to hold the drill in place.
3. I think about 3/16" of wood is often left below the ramrod hole. As a first time stock maker I was thinking  to increase this to 1/4" to give me a little wiggle room. The rifle is a heavy plains type gun.  I think I would have to change the entry pipe if I did this. 
4. "check holes". I read someplace that small holes are drilled in the bottom of the barrel grove to check the progress of the drilling- to make sure it is straight.  If this is true everything would have to be dis-assembled.  Normally the barrel is left in place on the stock during the drilling, correct? 

and, any other help in this area appreciated.

[Tom Currie]

Red Owl, Clamping 2 small blocks with a half round cut in them and then placed over the half round ram rod groove in your stock allows the drill to stay in place during the drilling process. Chuck Dixons book is a good book for the beginning builder as it will answer many of the question you have. Well worth the very reasonable cost.
www.dixonmuzzleloading.com

[Stophel]

I do basically the same thing Taylor does.  I do, however, take a yardstick and clamp it along each of the two outlines, and trace the lines, scoring them heavily with a knife.  I find this helps me a LOT in keeping wood from breaking out on the sides of the channel.  Also, I have a 3/8" round steel rod with a sharply cut end.  This I use for a scraper (a very effective one, at that), and also I will use it to find the high spots in the channel.  It's nice and rusty, and I can wet it just a little bit, lay it in the channel, slide it back and forth, and it marks the high spots nicely. 

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

1)  You can see in the first of my images that there is about 3/16" of wood on each side of the barrel.  I wouldn't slim it down much further before cutting the rod groove - can't see any advantage.

2)  Use wooden blocks to guide the drill.  For a half stock, I use the pipes already hard soldered to the rib and the rib soft soldered to the barrel, to guide the drill .  This gives you a rod hole that is the same size as the holes through the pipes.  Usually the forend of a half stock is beefier than on a longrifle, so that's ok.  On longrifles, I usually drill the rod hole 1/16" smaller than the rod groove, so that it will receive a tapered rod, and minimize the depth of the forend.

3)  3/16" of web is maximum, IMHO.  I shoot for 1/8" - 5/32" for the web.

4)  Definitely leave the barrel in the channel when drilling the rod hole.  I don't think this requires an explanation.  I don't normally drill "check holes' until after the hole is drilled, and it is just to satisfy myself that all have gone as planned.  Other's may have more to say about that.