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Pistol blank wood

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Col. Batguano

75 Cal.
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I was playing lumberjack over the weekend and took some slabs out of a sugar maple tree I took down a couple of years ago. I was thinking that the ideal grain for rifles makes a significant turn at the wrist to follow the comb, right? So, following that logic, ideally it would make the same turn for a pistol, which, is more than 90 degrees. The only place it does this is where major limbs come out of the trunk And, of course, the lumberjacks harvesting trees don't do that. They want maximum yields from a tree, not pistol blanks. So, have any of you guys playing lumberjack ever tried to cut your pistol blanks this way? It sure was a LOT of work for a $20-$40 pistol blank though!
 
Nawww....I use the extra from around a rifle blank cut out....got a bunch cherry and walnut just sitting around....I'll mail the to folks for the postage.....pm me if your interested.
:wink:
Sounds like your gonna work some real special wood....dueling pistol?
Marc
 
I can't be the first guy out there with a saw that has ever thought of this. They've been cutting timbers from these sorts of junctions for ship's knee braces this way for centuries. And they've been making pistols shaped like this for centuries too.
 
You will find most of the pistol blanks are cut from the leftovers of planks that rifle blanks are cut from. I sold over 40 of them last year, just because I was tired of moving them. Had saved them from plank leftovers & really don't care about building pistols, when I could put same time in a rifle.
Your way of doing it will work & would produce some good blanks, but as you said, allot of work for a pistol blank. Really depends on the Quality of the blank as well. I have two here I kept that are worth $ 75. each, but they are exceptional blanks. If you could work a day & produce 10 of them & have a market for them, I would say that be worth the effort. You could find marketing them the issue. Not everyone wants to put $ into a pistol, as it is 1/2 the price of a rifle.

Keith Lisle
 
Right. Half the price, and 80% of the work. the grip and wrist are even trickier to get right. What I did is maybe the ONLY way to get wood that is "right" for a pistol build.

I'm also guessing that out of 100 ML'ers that get built (not counting the Investarms kit stuff), 80 of them are rifles, 10 of them are fowlers or smoothies, and maybe 10 are pistols.

It'll be interesting to see how this wood comes out. A fat old Swede with a chainsaw in the swamp is not exactly a precision milling machine.

Since it's just a blank for me, and about the building process more than the finished product, and, since the basic build is a 140+ hour process, what's a couple more hours either way on the front end to get your own wood, from wild local northern MN trees IF the wood itself turns out to be acceptable, or otherwise exceptional.
 
I would speculate much less than 1 out of the hundred are pistols. If you go to a ML shop, just ask them how many rifles they sell a year, then how many pistols. BP pistols just don't move much except possibly the BP revolvers.
Most of the people I know have ML pistols, don't shoot them very often. Once the new is worn off, they sit in the gun safe. The few I do know that shoot them regular, are shooting in a club & in events, and they are shooting BP revolvers most of the time.
I have 2 that I have never shot, have the parts to build 2-3 pistols, & prob. will never build them. :idunno: I'd just rather put time in something I like to shoot & hunt with.

Keith Lisle
 
The "belly" saw offs on the commercial blanks that I buy don't leave enough wood for much else than that pictured below.....Fred





 
Likewise....I have one a friend gave me to finish out.....it's a Mtn man 50cal.....hanging on the wall....maybe SOMEday I'll shoot it.....

Now I might someday make me a set of dueling pistols, and the box.....that would have a cool factor for me....
Marc
 
Yeah a brace of duelers would be super cool. It seems to me that the proper styling for those should be French though shouldn't it? And that's walnut most of the time isn't it?
 
Oh, my word!! Those are beautiful and destined, no doubt, to become family heirlooms. It must be nice to have the skills to make things like those. :thumbsup:
 
Thanks...a nice change of pace.Each of my 5 children have a set and some actually use them. Mine has "battle scars" from knocking on the rims of cooking pots......Fred
 
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