It's all done but the grip checkering.  That can wait until next winter.  The plan now is to shoot as much lead down the barrel as I can this summer.  I started out with a rough turned Douglas barrel blank, a nice piece of Oregon walnut, and an action.  I chambered it in 32-20 WCF.  Load development is still in progress.  It shows possibilities so far.  The large target is a fluke; I shot it with the aperture sights at 90 yards and haven't been able to repeat it.  The smallest group was shot with an Accurate Molds 312133b, 7.4 grains of old WW 540MS and WW pistol primers.  The other group was shot with the Lyman 311410 and same powder charge.  Both of these were shot with a target scope.  It will be fun trying some serious work at 200 yds.

Very nice indeed! It looks like a model 49 stock.

SBoomer wrote on May 6^th, 2014 at 9:51am:


It's a number 49 buttstock.  One of the more sensible things I did was send the buttstock off to CPA to profile it.  They did a great job.  The tang inletting was excellent and I am very fussy about that.  I hate gaps in the wood to metal fit.

nuclearcricket wrote on May 7^th, 2014 at 7:20am:


The barrel is a Douglas 16 twist.  It was marked 32 S&W.  The ammo is fixed.  I use a neck bushing die I made and an inline seating die, the Hornady die with a seating sleave I made using the chamber reamer.  The bullet is one I designed somewhat similar to the Lyman 311410.  I size it in a .313 die and use NRA formula lube.  I made a size die with the 1 1/2 degree throater I used in the chamber.  It puts a taper on the first band that matches the chamber throat.  Since I have a extra lubrisizer I size and lube as usual first and then run the bullet into the taper die nose first.  I haven't determined yet whether this helps accuracy or not but will do that this summer.  Alaska winter days are short and nights are long. Gives a guy lots of time to think up things to do.  I have an attic full of hindsights.  One of them is that I should have asked Tom at Accurate Molds if he could cut the front band at a 1 1/2 degree taper.  He makes a very good mold in my opinion.  

John Shaw