Fore stock thickness or did I cut it too close

[Maurice]

What is a bare minimum wood thickness for the fore stock at the side flats and bottom oblique flats forward of the ramrod entry pipe?

After band sawing, my thinnest rough dimensions at one point in the fore stock on the lock side about midway between the rear entry pipe and the muzzle are as follows:

a) At the top of the stock - thickness from side flat of barrel outward = 1/8”
b) Same point at bottom of stock - thickness from the  ramrod channel edge outward = 7/16”

Looking for comments as to whether these dimensions at this point are too thin to allow shaping (that is rounding) of the fore stock - particularly at the top of the stock (a) 

[Mike Brooks]

Upper forestock 1/16" wide from the side of the barrel. lower forestock 1/8" wide from the side of the barrel.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Minimum!  Ideal!!

[Mr. Bubbles]

You're in good shape yet probably,  You didn't say what barrel you were using.  If you are using a heavy D-weight you might be a bit on the thin side.  On my last gun, an A-weight, I used a max thickness away from the barrel flat of .090", and feathered in to .025" as it moved inward to make contact.  It's pretty thin and fragile, but I tried to keep it proportional with the rather diminuitive measurements of that little A-weight 

[Mark Elliott]

What Mike and Taylor said is good general advise.  Virginia rifles tend to be about 3/32" thick in both the upper and lower forearm although I often let it go to 1/8" in the lower forearm.

[David Price]

Maurice,

I lay a popsicle stick up against the barrel and use it for a guide to draw a line from the forward edge of the lock panel to the muzzle.  Put it in the band saw and cut a slab off the side of the stock.  This works for a straight barrel or a swamped barrel.  Leave the pencil line.   Make sure to hold the stock plumb while running it through the saw. 

David Price

[Stophel]

Been a while, but whenever I see any old gun, almost invariably, the fore end is right about 3/32" thick on either side of the barrel, and definitely not "feathered" out to nothing, as I commonly see people say.  I've seen Berks guns with thicker fore ends, like 1/8", very full and round.

[Dave B]

The thickness of the wood can vary depending on what style you rifle are building. Here are two different examples of originals, the smooth rifle with Oct to rnd barrel is thin. The Hog rifle is a lot heavier in the barrel so has thicker fore end wood, it would seem. Others will chime in on their experience with this.




The wood thickness for the fore end  is slightly over 5/64" being (.082) for most of the fore end till the entry pipe then (.120) for rest of the forearm to the lock panels. Only the area immediately after the muzzle cap is it thinner at 1/16"(.062) matching the thickness of the cap itself. The edge looks like you could cut your self.

The Hog rifle fore end wood has the almost the same appearance of thickness from muzzle end (.160) back to the entry pipe fore arm (.198)

[rich pierce]

Agree it is style dependent. Sometimes we try to outdo originals.

Having said that, plenty of originals are very thin and they are often split and damaged in the upper forestock before restoration.

[Dave B]

Rich you are right on. The thin fore end is as you noted cracked in several places. The line you see in the side shot is not a molding line but a long crack running to 5-6" or so. I have a couple other slim barrel rifle/guns that are octagon but still have thin fore ends.
This one has a 13/16"  barrel the muzzle cap is .062 the wood is .110 thick from muzzle cap back to lock panels.

[Dave B]

if you zoom in on the last shot of the muzzle cap you can see the profile of the shape of the woods edge radius that leads into the barrel side flat. The  edge is rounded over not knife edged