Hunting knives and related projects

[montana]

Von Gruff your skills keep amazing me. I'm probably starting to sounding like a school girl with a crush LOL but your work is amazing. I do like the Mannlicher stock but I too never cared for the Schnabel tip but you made this one appealing. I have never seen African black wood before, is it as hard as ebony? I would think it would be hard to blend a hard and softer wood together as you did especially during rasping. The picture on post 175 clearly shows your outstanding, precise trigger in letting. The grip cap came out perfectly like it was CNC machined. You have a talented eye to do it free hand as you did. I have never heard of alkanet oil , does it give the wood it's color or do you use a different stain? Another fine piece of work Von Gruff, I am really enjoying this.

[Von Gruff]

If it hadn't been for your interest and comments/questions I would have stopped posting these projects as I dont do it for my ego but to share what may be of interest or instruction to others, so I do apreciate your input and am a little surprised that more of the forum members are not interested in custom rifles outside of the grendel specific model.

african blackwood is harder than ebony and is possibly a little more stable as far as expansion and contraction is concerned because of its density.

Alkanet oil is alkanet root ground to powder and steeped in blo (boiled linseed oil) and slathered onto the stock after the last sanding process. Left for a half hour and wiped off it imparts a red tone to the wood. Depending on the underlying wood grain structure and colour the alkanet oil is sometimes used for a second coat. Then the grain filling is done by wet sanding and finally the multiple ultra thin coats of tung oil/blo mix is hand rubbed in untill the surface is at the desired level of finish.

[Von Gruff]

Hopefull this may be the start of a work in progress as I was out getting next winters firewood last week and gave the farmer a knife I had made and said to use it hard to see how it stood up. He mentioned that his pig hunter son may want a stocking knife at some stage. When I got home I drew up something I believe will be suitable, made a hardwood pattern then cut out a blank from some mild steel, ground it to shape got the bevels sorted and put on a rudimentary handle and took it to another pig hunter who expressed quite an interest so I left it with him for the weekend when he will show it to a few of his pig hunter mates and see if any more are interested in getting one as well. I told him that if he could get three others to order one each, I would do his as a freebie. If I can get four of them into the pig hunting fraternity there is a chance that many more orders will folow.
Whe the guys here hunt pigs they use dogs to find and hold the pig then go in and grab the back leg to flip it over and use the knife to stick it through the heart either from under the throat or under the armpit.

This is the pattern I have worked on



This is fairly typical of how a pig hunt goes. A bit shaky on the video work till they get to the pig.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuu0JQppakQ

[Von Gruff]

In the meantime this is a mannlicher that I have a little more affinity for. Another one for my good friend Euan.


When I was through at the gunsmiths the other day I called in to see Euan and picked up a German precarve mannlicher stock and a G33/40 barrelled action in 8x57 he had. When we discussed the style for the finished rifle he showed me another rifle from his collection that has a minimalist stock with a Prince of Wales grip. I have always wanted to do one of these so was pleased with the chalenge of taking the 70/s styled stock and making it into a early Germanic styled mannlicher for him.



This is the style to emulate



The B/A inlet was one of the trickier ones to do as the precarve had a 1/2 in barrel channel that ran off from the action inlet and when it was all settled in there was a good 1/4 in more wood on one side than the other added to which the barrel is the original military with the 5 steps from the barrel flange through to the final slightly tapered portion.


With a full length stock there is no way to grasp the barrel to lift it out of thenstock so I put the base end of a firm fitting drill bit into the bore and taped it in position.


I got the bottom metal inlet yesterday so todays will concentrate on the cteel butt plate which caused a little measureing and conversation with Euan. When the trigger to centre of butt with the old butt plate removed it showed a 13 1/4 L O P. I was concerned that when I cut the curve for the TOTW checkered butt plate it might shorten the L O P too far for comfortable use. The curve requires a little more than a 1/4 in but the steel plate is near that in thickness so it should end up at better than 13 1/8 which is right in the fast mount length for both Euan and I so he is happy with that.

[Von Gruff]

Had a little time in the shed this morning but have been invited out for lunch so may not get back to it today again.
First off I fitted the new butt plate and had to grind it a lot more than usual to fit the available wood.
This is the ground one beside an untouched one.

Then marking in the changes I wanted to make

after running it through the bandsaw the shape could start to be changed

[URL=http://s1070.photobucket.com/user/vongruff1/media/Photo3052_zpsqycipkjg.jpg.html][/URL

[Drillboss]

If it hadn't been for your interest and comments/questions I would have stopped posting these projects as I dont do it for my ego but to share what may be of interest or instruction to others, so I do apreciate your input and am a little surprised that more of the forum members are not interested in custom rifles outside of the grendel specific model.

Don't assume we're not interested. I, for one, am simply soaking it in. You're doing awesome work.

[Von Gruff]

A couple of hours this morning had the buttstock looking a bit better with the action tang and rear of T/G reshaped to slim things down. May not do anything else now till Euan gets the metal forend cap as that will dictate the forestock lines.

[Von Gruff]

I am going to have to do a lowered left side through the action rail length to accomadate the "thinned for lightening" rail behind the thumb notch. Will do it like this one

[Von Gruff]

One last little effort in the roughing shape was the thumb notch and window.
First off the bolt release needed to be fitted so marking what needed removing gave me an idea where to remove wood.

Before fitting into place I like to radius the front edge of the bolt release as it makes the corner of the remaining wood a little stronger than when it is cut square. Then some shaping to make the shelf and add some contour to the stock sides

All that was left to do was to radius the front and rear of the T/G for a more rounded stock bottom that will make for a better hand shaped carry.



Now it really will have to sit untill the muzzle cap arrives.

[Von Gruff]

The muzzle cap has arrived and seeing it makes me realise just how much will have to come off the stock dimensions to not only fit the cap but to take those nose dimensions bac to the bottom metal

So having marked arround the cap I needed to mark the rear of the stub. wrap it at that point and run arround with the 18pti blade on the hacksaw.


Here you can see the lines marked in to cut back the underbelly. One line is marked in as a straight taper with the top line being one that runs parralell to the top of the stock line back for about 6-7 inches where the sling bar is located and drilled through.

[Von Gruff]

and after a run through the bandsaw

[Von Gruff]

Got the forestock shaped up although there is still a lot of slimming down to do at least the profile is about done.

[Von Gruff]

After the extended wait for the bolt handle I was abe to get the rifle finished so got a couple of pics in the winter sinshine today befor it was picked up this afternoon.

[montana]

I like the way you radius the front end of the bolt release, it fit perfectly. Cutting a stock end square with a band saw would be difficult enough but having to cut the end cap square with a hack saw while leaving an end cap stud would be extremely difficult in my opinion. It is hard to always tell how a rifle would fit and feel from a picture but your rifles look like they would be great to carry and shoot. It would be hard to take them on some of my hunts where they would get nicked and scratched in the mountains of Montana. I'm sure there are many here on the forum who have enjoyed your postings since I noticed there are 1725 views so far. Your rifles are on another level of aesthetics and skill compared to most AR and military semi rifles. If you ever wish to sell one of your knives please feel free to PM me. I would love to have one of them. On another note I have never seen a pig hunter grab a big boar by the feet and dispatch it. He had some good dogs and a lot of nerve. The only problem was the accent. I have no idea how they understood each other LOL. I worked on a wild fire back in 2000 and our cat boss was from Tasmania. He was very difficult to understand, I mean very difficult.

[Von Gruff]

That rifle has taken a number of animals and with its slim handfull it carries very easily indeed. Almost every rifle I do the stockwork for is expected to take the hard hunting of our back country and the nicks and scars of the hunt are almost like a diary of the rifles adventures. I have done a refinish on a couple that took a hard tumble but in the main scars are part and parcel of the hunting rifle. My 7x57 when I lent it to a friend for a hunt came back with the exposed wood within the skeleton butt pate very heavily marked as he use it as a walking stick on some steep rocky hill country so I had to set the butt plate back enough to refinish that part of it.

Ha, I know what you mean about the accents of those from different places. I was in australia for about 12 years and like everywhere the accent can vary from place to place. Much of the US is quite easily understood but there are still some areas where I have to listen closely to catch the intent of the words.