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I'm pretty well along with my build of a Lyman GPR. Stock is ready to go back to the wrist. I just started detailing the wrist and front comb and would like some opinions on the shape. I decided on a curve type feature rather then a cut line. From what I've seen this feature varies widely from gun to gun. I'm thinking the cut needs to be a little deeper and longer back into the stock let me know your thoughts.
 

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That’s a much improved wrist and comb. A bit sharper front edge and blend the rounded part of the wrist. The hardest part is getting around the beveled edge of the tang, if only it had a square edge. The top edge of the forearm can be narrowed when you get to that part of your build.
 
That’s a much improved wrist and comb. A bit sharper front edge and blend the rounded part of the wrist. The hardest part is getting around the beveled edge of the tang, if only it had a square edge. The top edge of the forearm can be narrowed when you get to that part of your build.
From the wrist forward it is for the most part finished. your right about the tang, first off the tang didn't fit correctly and I had to do some inletting to move it back so the screw holes would line up.
At this point I have the wood brought down to the flat portion on the tang I'm not sure that I'll try and bring the wood down to the lower portion of the bevel.
Tomorrow or the next day I'll be starting of the cheek piece which I'm dreading it is by far the most tedious of working on this stock.
 
The cheek piece is a good opportunity to improve the GPR looks. Judging on what you’ve done I expect you’ll do well.
 
They are notorious for having the dreaded breech hump too.
I'll wing it here with what I think the definition of a "breech hump" is.
The area of the barrel channel just ahead of the tang and breech that isn't fully inletted? If that is the case I used inletting black on the barrel and it sits about as flat in the channel as a person could ask for in a kit gun.
 
Nope. You're on the right track but not quite there.
It's the shape of the tang after it comes back off the barrel. That could or could not include the hooked breech metal implement depending on what you want to do. In these guns it stays pretty flat (because there's lots of metal there) before it starts to bend downward to the wrist and the thinner part of the tang. You need to use your file to remove a bunch of the metal (which will include wood too) and get it to start bending downwards further forward than it does in the kit and make the whole breech area look thinner (that will help getting a thinner wrist too). These guns are notoriously chunky in that area. Good if you're building a military weapon that will some times wear a bayonet and needs the strength, but unnecessary on a sporting arm.

Take a look at some of Dave Person's guns that have been built with hooked breeches to see how he's handled them. The "sand and assemble" kits give you a nice start, but they can also benefit from a fair amount of modification.
 
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Nope. You're on the right track but not quite there.
It's the shape of the tang after it comes back off the barrel. That could or could not include the hooked breech metal implement depending on what you want to do. In these guns it stays pretty flat (because there's lots of metal there) before it starts to bend downward to the wrist and the thinner part of the tang. You need to use your file to remove a bunch of the metal (which will include wood too) and get it to start bending downwards further forward than it does in the kit and make the whole breech area look thinner (that will help getting a thinner wrist too). These guns are notoriously chunky in that area. Good if you're building a military weapon that will some times wear a bayonet and needs the strength, but unnecessary on a sporting arm.

Take a look at some of Dave Person's guns that have been built with hooked breeches to see how he's handled them. The "sand and assemble" kits give you a nice start, but they can also benefit from a fair amount of modification.
Got it. your right about one thing the wrist in this stock was way bigger then it need to be but I've taken off a good portion of it already and have it down to a shape that fells good to my hands. I really don't think removing metal from the tang is going to make it fell better to my hands but I have rather large hands. If I were going to remove any metal from the tang it would be on the top of the tang to get rid of the bevel so I could get a better metal to wood fit.
 
Your shooting hand is well aft of the tang area so removing material from the tang area won't affect that. Removal or lowering of a flat part of the tang aft of the breech plug is purely an aesthetic thing

That is precisely where the metal should come from. Take a look at some of the better built Plains Rifles to see what I mean about the profile of the top of the tang. Look particularly critically at that portion of the guns, and the profile. Forget about what the kit shows or says. Look at some historical examples and better built contemporary pieces.

You want to be careful about removing too much wood in front of the nose of the comb. The wrist should be tapered or parallel (looking at it vertically / from the side) moving forward from the comb nose toward the breech. If you take too much wood off near the comb (and it tapers wider going forward) you wind up with what they call a "pinched wrist". That is a characteristic trait of Virginia rifles but not so much so for Plains guns. Long rifles often start their bend even in the back inch or so of the top barrel flat. It creates for some interesting barrel filing to deal with, without making the top flat wider than the tang, but looks good when seen in profile.
 
I'm not in my shop right now but I'll post up some photos of the wrist area to this point and you can take a look. To this point I don't think I've removed to much wood in front of the comb nose and may need to remove a little more. I'm not really happy with the bevel on the tang and would like a better wood to metal fit there, filing it down wouldn't bother me.
 
This is the area that is the hump spoken of. The line from just aft of the hammer is flat rather then starting to sloop down right away. It’s suttle but load once you become aware of it.
1609890934236.jpeg
 
Years back one of the guys who remodeled his GPR did a shadow line around the cheek piece when working over that area. It looked good. The pics are long gone, but you can imagine the appearance I suspect.
 
Here's where I'm at with the flat area behind the hammer, honestly it doesn't look that bad to my eye but I'm far from a expert on Hawken designs. The biggest issue I have with that area is the bevel on the tang and I don't think it's possible to remove the bevel without getting into the flats on the hook portion, so I'm going to have to live with a less then perfect wood to metal fit there.
My other gripe is with the bottom portion of the butt stock. I would like to get a straight line from the trigger guard to the back of the toe plate but the way the stock is shaped I don't think this will happen. I've filed down some of the front of the toe plate and it's a little straighter but if I go to far with that the toe plate will become to thin.
 

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If the inletting has a gap you might be able to peen the tang wider. Otherwise, splice in a piece of wood, and inlet the tang in to the new opening. That's much easier than trying to slice off a perfectly fitting sliver and trying to glue that slice in to the area. Don't worry too much about having a perfect seat on the base of the tang right now. You could put a piece of wood in there and try to get it insetted down flush, OR, it's no mortal sin to put a little glass bedding or other similar synthetic substance (like epoxy putty) in there to get a perfectly flat seat when it's tightened down. Nobody is going to see it anyway.

It looks like it still has a breech hump to me. Take a look at some of the guns at Track of the Wolf and the Hawken Shop in that tang area. You might even take a peek at Ohio Vincents as those are Plains guns too, albeit a slimmer version. The Lymans. Investarms, T/C's et. al are not true "Hawken guns" but something of a hybrid of a bunch of different plains guns.

Pay attention to the size and shape of the left side lock panel as well as the margins around the lock too, and the sweeps and radiuses transitioning to and from them. A lot of people have trouble with those transitions because they use a round rat tail file and sort of trench around them, keeping the same radius the whole way. The result is that the lock panels get something of an "applied" look, rather than something that sort of "grew" out of the stock. Hawkens and Plains guns are a little different than long rifles that way in that those radiuses are always changing and evolving in LR's, but less so that way in Hawkens. An 8" half-round file is helpful in first initiating them, but the round scrapers like you can get from Brownell's take less wood at a time and ultimately give you better control in the shape of the sweeps, particularly if they have evolving radiuses.
 
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Yes the Lyman hump is what it is so moving on seems reasonable. The toe plate can be reinlet so the front is deeper and the line to the trigger guard can be straighter.
 
The problems with tangs that are not fully seated while it is at rest is that they are "springy". For instance, if they're a little bit proud to the wood, the bolt certainly can be tightened down to bring it flush. but there will still be something of a gap under it that can create repeated flexing and unflexing of the tang during the setback of firing. Heavy loads will flex it more than light loads, but the seasonal movement of the wood will create varying amounts of load on this new "spring", and could vary your point of aim slightly from day to day.

The best thing to do is to get your tang bent (most can be bent cold, but heat will make it easier and soften the steel) to a position that's pretty close to flush (but slightly proud) while it is at rest, and then do your bedding (whether in wood or with synthetic substances) I like synthetics because it's easy, and 100% effective in giving full contact. Clamp your barrel down at the breech, and bring both surfaces to flush with one another. You could use a flat-head bolt through the tang hole to help hold it down too, but the general idea is to bed it while it's in a relaxed state. If you do that, make sure to deepen the screw slot so you can get it back out after it's been filed. Just don't use the one you intend to be your finished gun tang bolt, because it's going to get buggered up during the filing. You may need to freshen up your counter-sink after the filing for the tang bolt, but that's pretty easy. Now you'll have a tang seated that is rock solid and will never move on you.

Don't worry about getting the tang filed too thin. As they come, they're about 1/4" thick, which is way more than you need. You only need about 1/8" (and maybe not even that much) for strength if everything is bedded correctly.

One more thing, is to make sure you have something of a small gap at the rear of your tang for it to set back and then reset a little during firing. Just an Exact-o knife's blade width is enough. If you don't leave that little gap, the tang will slam in to the rear of the inlet and introduce cracking of the wrist over time. That is particularly a concern with tangs that are rounded or shaped. They become something of a wedge.
 
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I'm about to start the part I'm dreading the most, I've made a basic outline on the cheekpiece and figured I'd let you have a look and see what you think, I figure I'll have to remove around 1/2 of wood to get it down to the stock contour.
 

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What I see in your photo is a smaller cheekpiece and a slight downward curve at the leading edge.
Thanks I'll lay it out again.
Have a look at this lay out. I saved your picture and enlarged it and I'm glad I did that cheekpiece has much more of a radius on the lower edge then I would have cut. My thoughts were more of a 90 degree angle from edge to the lower portion of the stock.
 

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