Quote:
Originally Posted by azjeff
If you want to send me that fingergroove stock I'll forget about the Magpul and everyone is happy! 
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I believe that stock is the last or one of the last stocks "Tuck" (RFC Member and good guy) made. I contacted him asking about a stock for Sophia's project rifle that we built for her to show our appreciation of all she has done for us here at RFC and out of affection we share for her as friends who cared about her long before she was even a Moderator.
Tuck happened to be on vacation or something and by the time he got back to me with a picture or two and a quote for the price of the stock we were already going in another amazing direction with a stock that that just might be the most beautiful stock I have ever seen on a 10/22.
So I had a quote and some pictures of this, only partially finished beauty, and I asked Tuck if the same price would apply if I bought it for myself, thinking he would have given us a rock bottom price because it was going to her (it was a very good deal). I expected him to add another $100 at least to the price and if he had it would have been well out of any budget I had for a stock.
He got back to me and said it was supposed to be
his stock, his last stock he made for himself but he needed the money for another project and offered to sell it to me if I bought it fast before he changed his mind. I did not even think about it for one minute and told the money was on it's way.
When I got it it had some small "issues" that needed to be addressed (still needs bedding changed) but it had about 3-5 (I do not remember for sure) coats of Arrow Wood oil (basically a 98% tung oil with a few additives) and in these pictures it has about 15 coats. It needs a couple more.
There is an old saying about tung oil finishes something like:
"A coat of oil every day for a week. A coat of oil every week for a month. A coat of oil every month for a year. A coat of oil every year forever!"
It is not what I would have chosen for a finish if I got the stock naked but I was afraid to change horses in midstream. After contacting "noremf" he said it would be a lot of work to change to something else and a possibility I would end up screwing up a very nice piece of wood!!


It is, easily, the nicest stock (when considering just the wood) I have ever owned. The original plan was to put a 19" GMHT on this rifle but when I started measuring I would only have something like .060" of wood on each side of the barrel at the fore arm tip


WAY too close for my meager wood working skills and the rifle would have to coddled like a new born baby forever so that was out.
I looked around at what was available for a barrel in my small budget and a matte blue Fedderson fit the bill. It was not matte blue it was gray and it was paint of some kind.
I had helped my friend, a 94 year pold gunsmith to thread a shot gun barrel for internal chokes (I did the muscle work!


). When I asked him about how much to blue it he said "Friends do not talk about such things" and two days later I had it back (he had said a week). Turned out the coating on the barrel came off "in sheets" so he had a easier job than he thought he would. Right now this rifle has one of my 80% receivers in it ready for testing