# Ruger 10/22 thumbhole stock made from maple & cherry



## Dusty (Sep 25, 2012)

I carved this stock Saturday and finished it yesterday. Now all I need to do is buy a Ruger and a match barrel to build a rifle for my son's Christmas gift. It was built for a customer, but I had to charge extra to pay for the maple I bought from a guitar builder... Those guys charge way too much for pretty wood! I also inserted an aluminum pillar. The Ruger stocks have a brass button for the stock bolt to draw up against. Only the wood is still compressed. I use a solid aluminum post so the wood can't compress and change the zero as the moisture and temperature changes.

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This wood came from a tree in East Tennessee, so I don't think it was big leaf maple. It's quilted with little pillows of grain like it's blistered. Any idea what to call the grain pattern? I sure hate to see this one go. I'm going to have to carve one to keep. I traded the last Ruger 10/22 target rifle I built for a trailer to haul logs... 

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## LoneStar (Sep 25, 2012)

Boy that is nice work !
What do you use for most of the carving ? Seems like majority of it would have to be done by hand.


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## cabomhn (Sep 25, 2012)

This is georgous! Awesome work but I would also be interested in hearing a little about how you go about shaping it.


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## scrimman (Sep 25, 2012)

Yeah! Any chance of you doing a tutorial/class on how to make a gunstock? I've done one for my black powder rifle, but I'd sure like to see how it goes with something more modern.


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## UpNorthWoods (Sep 25, 2012)

*RE: Ruger 10/22 thumbhole stock made from maple & cherry*

That thing is beautiful!


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## myingling (Sep 25, 2012)

WOW Man ,,Nice work


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## woodtickgreg (Sep 25, 2012)

I've got a ruger 10 22 that want's to be in that stock! Beautiful!


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## davduckman2010 (Sep 25, 2012)

no greg my 223 has taken a likeing to it  duck super nice work


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## Dusty (Sep 25, 2012)

I hate to confess... But, I cheat and do my carving with a 2 1/2 hp router. When I started carving gunstocks, I bought a duplicator that was built by Dakota Arms. Don Allen was a genius who designed and built the duplicator and founded Dakota Arms in 1987. 

To duplicate a stock, you put a pattern stock in one side and a block of wood in the other. The cutter and the stylus are identical and exactly on 10" centers from the center of the stock and pattern mounts. The short story, is you hold the stylus and let the cutter remove everything that's not going to be a stock. It's much more complicated than that, but it's a lot easier than carving a stock from scratch. I do 95% of the work to produce a finished stock, but the final 5% takes 95% of the time. In the amount of time it takes to finish a stock, I can carve 5 or 6 other stocks. Here's a webpage I posted on a woodworking site a while back that shows how I set up to carve a stock. 

http://lumberjocks.com/HalDougherty/blog/18039 

And this page shows how I use my duplicator to carve a stock. 

http://lumberjocks.com/projects/19137 

I retired in 2001 and after several years of adventure, I looked around for something I could make and sell. Turns out in Tennessee, farm produce you raise, like corn or beef, don't require you to have a business license or collect sales tax. Ditto for timber products and crafts made from them as long as at least 50% of the raw materials are not purchased from someone else. The only thing I have to buy to make my stocks is glue and a few ounces of glue per each 10 lb blank won't come close to the 50% rule. I cut my wood into 1" slabs and I air dry it in the shade till it's down below 20% moisture content. This time of year, that takes about 30 days. Then I cut out blank shaped slices, plane them, drum sand them, and dry them in the attic of my two story farmhouse. I can process about 1000 bft of lumber at a time up there. When I'm ready to carve a stock, I glue up laminates in a 100 ton hydraulic press I built. Buying a commercial press was way too expensive. Also cutting 3" thick blanks requires years to dry and season them. I'm over 60 and I don't have time to wait. Most of the stocks I carve are for either target, benchrest, or varmint rifles and laminates are much more stable than solid stocks. Also I can use all the wood for stocks. Cutting 3" blanks with the grain oriented for a stock wastes at least 80% of the log. I can use all of it and plain grain walnut, cherry & maple laminated into a stock blank make spectacular stocks. Real hardwoods make much more beautiful stocks than the dyed birch plywood everybody else uses. 

Without all the equipment I have, carving a stock would take weeks. A hard maple stock like this one would take even longer. This darn wood is so hard you can hardly scratch it with a pocket knife. There's also a bunch of you-tube videos that show duplicators in action. A quick search will keep you occupied for a while.
If you have any specific questions, just ask. 

Hal


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## scrimman (Sep 25, 2012)

That ain't cheatin', hoss. If it removes the wood from where it needs to leave, then it's the right tool for the job. Its the mind behind the tool that matters, not the tool. After all, a monkey with a computer is still a monkey. 
Thanks for pointers to the lesson...pardon, I've got some reading to do........


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## HomeBody (Sep 26, 2012)

Very nice stock. Looking at Ruger wood on ebay, you will see dozens of factory 10/22 stocks for sale. I'd say this is a really popular gun to get a custom stock made for.
I'm still looking for that beater M-77 Ruger short action wood stock so you can duplicate one for me. Gary


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## davduckman2010 (Sep 26, 2012)

i agree cheat away those stocks you make are beutifull no matter how your carveing them if you ever want to carve one for me let me know cash or trade im in my freind . duckman


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## hardtwist (Sep 26, 2012)

I have a 10-22 that sure needs a sprucin' up! Do you do this for profit? And if so, what kind of a price range am I looking at for something similar? Shippin' don't figure in as I'm just down the road from you between Rogersville and Morristown...


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## Dusty (Sep 27, 2012)

hardtwist said:


> I have a 10-22 that sure needs a sprucin' up! Do you do this for profit? And if so, what kind of a price range am I looking at for something similar? Shippin' don't figure in as I'm just down the road from you between Rogersville and Morristown...



I carve gunstocks almost every day and I've only been able to keep 3 of them for my own rifles so far. The stocks I usually sell are sanded to 120grit and I rub in a couple of coats of tung oil to help protect the stock, unless the customer requests I leave off the oil. The stock in these photos was sanded to 220 grit and two coats of tung oil rubbed in with extra fine steel wool. I made this stock for a customer to look at before I carved his. He wanted a different design without a thumbhole, so this one is available. Since I took these photos I fitted a Ruger 10/22 with a target barrel into the stock and I've finished sanded the stock to remove the few defects that didn't show till after I'd done the first sanding. I've also rubbed in several coats of tung oil and polished each coat. Over the next few days, I'll take the 50-50 mixture of tung oil and mineral spirits I use to wet sand, and mix this into another 50-50 mixture with exterior spar varnish. That's a home made version of tru-oil gunstock finish. Only it's not $10 for a tiny bottle... It makes nice hard finish, that's easy to refinish in spots when I get a scratch or ding. Some of the hard finishes like Remington uses are much harder to scratch, but they are almost impossible to repair just a little spot. 
My regular price for an unfinished stock sanded to 120grit is $150 plus $15 for shipping. I would sell this one for $250 plus $15 shipping, or come pick it up and skip the shipping. 

Hal


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## davduckman2010 (Sep 27, 2012)

wow thats a great price dusty we will have to talk i would be interested in one . i can you make it out of that curly maple i have when dry ? duckman


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## Ken Johnson (Oct 3, 2012)

*RE: Ruger 10/22 thumbhole stock made from maple & cherry*

Nice work. Very beautiful!


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## Talisman1A (Oct 8, 2012)

*RE: Ruger 10/22 thumbhole stock made from maple & cherry*



Ken Johnson said:


> Nice work. Very beautiful!



Having several of DUSTY's stocks and planning on several more, I can say , they're works of art . Years from now, they're just going to be better and years after that , when ever it comes to it, I'll be passing on something that can't be replaced. I've got a couple here now , that I'm finishing , that will include glass bedding the action and pillar bedding as well. I'm also waiting the arrival of one SPECTACTULAR Walnut, Maple and Cherry Thumbhole stock . I'm going to have to go and join a local gun club to just show up at the shooting range and pull one of these stocks out and scare the daylight out of any of the competition.


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## Mr. Cornelius (Oct 9, 2012)

Wow! I have built several custom 10/22s for myself and my hunting buddies. In doing so I spent a lot of time on Rimfire Central, checking out other custom builds and I never saw a stock as nice as this one. 

Only $150?! That's a flat out steal.


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