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Making Bolt Action Gun Stocks

At the beginning of every year I spend time looking through old pictures from the past. After finding a thumb drive I hadn’t looked through in years I found pictures I wanted to share.

After spending 15 years making bolt action gun stocks for Marlin Firearms I was offered a position as an Engineering Project Manager for
O.F. Mossberg & Sons.

I spent the first year streamlining the production flow of the company wood room in North Haven Connecticut which primarily made Shotgun Stocks and Forearms. Halfway through my second year I was approached by the owner and asked to update the wood room in Eagle Pass Texas to include manufacturing Bolt Action Gun Stocks.

My first order of business was to take classes in SolidWorks and MasterCam to learn solid modeling so I could design and then have made the multiple fixtures I would need to apply to machines I would move from the wood room in Connecticut to Texas as well as the machinery I would need to purchase. By the end of my second year I was traveling to Texas for two weeks every month to start creating the space the expanded wood room would occupy. The following pictures are some of the processes I designed and had made including the setup of the wood room.
To start, all gun stocks start as what is known as a “blank” this is nothing more than a block of wood that comes from the companies that supply them shaped and profiled.
Bolt action blanks come longer than needed and need to be cut down.
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After buying two saws and attaching them together I designed a fixture that would hold the blank for its first cut.
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After this two holes were drilled into the butt end and one the muzzle end that would be used for location in the following manufacturing process, the two holes in the butt would eventually be used for attaching the recoil pad. The hole in the muzzle end would be cut off when the stock was cut to final length.
Next was moving and buying machinery and moving them to Texas.

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Moved from Connecticut was a outside profile sanding machine known as a Zuckermann, using a steel master this machine could sand and shape 8 stocks at a time, following this process the stock required a hand shaping and polishing.
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One of 3 CNC Machining centers purchased this was a dual table 8 spindle head machine.
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Two of these machining CTR’s were used primarily for inletting the action cuts and cuts for the trigger guard and magazine openings.

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A black laminate stock with test parts installed for machining clearance checks.
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Finished guns.
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Some fun stocks made.
 
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My GoldWing inside the new wood room in Texas.
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This fixture was designed to make the Final Cut to length before final finishing.
Stock shown during length setup.
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Some Prototypes.
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Me during CNC programming and initial program editing. Because of my wild hair I was nicknamed Einstein.

Up to this point and at the end of my 3rd year I was transferred to Texas full time and added two more CNC machining CTR’s and started hiring and training operators.
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A indexing machine was added to one CNC machine that was controlled by the program that would rotate the stock for machining all aspects of the cuts needed without having to remove the stock between individual cuts.

I worked for Mossberg for 5 years and
As I look through what amounts to be hundreds of photographs I’ll be posting more in the upcoming week.
 
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How cool is that. I'm glad you thought to take all these pictures. Hopefully Mossberg took care of you for all that work and innovation. ;)

You kinda look like Sting in that picture. Do you play bass ? :) You also kinda look like Malcolm Mc Dowell. And you really look a lot like the father of my best friend growing up. His name was Lawrence Woodrow McGrath and he was an amazing man.

Thanks for posting these buddy. Very cool to see this stuff.
 
How cool is that. I'm glad you thought to take all these pictures. Hopefully Mossberg took care of you for all that work and innovation. ;)

You kinda look like Sting in that picture. Do you play bass ? :) You also kinda look like Malcolm Mc Dowell. And you really look a lot like the father of my best friend growing up. His name was Lawrence Woodrow McGrath and he was an amazing man.

Thanks for posting these buddy. Very cool to see this stuff.
Thanks Bob I’ve got more to share as I dig through 5 years of pictures.
 
View attachment 34483
My GoldWing inside the new wood room in Texas.
View attachment 34484View attachment 34486
This fixture was designed to make the Final Cut to length before final finishing.
Stock shown during length setup.
View attachment 34487
Some Prototypes.
View attachment 34485
Me during CNC programming and initial program editing. Because of my wild hair I was nicknamed Einstein.

Up to this point and at the end of my 3rd year I was transferred to Texas full time and added two more CNC machining CTR’s and started hiring and training operators.
View attachment 34488
A indexing machine was added to one CNC machine that was controlled by the program that would rotate the stock for machining all aspects of the cuts needed without having to remove the stock between individual cuts.

I worked for Mossberg for 5 years and
As I look through what amounts to be hundreds of photographs I’ll be posting more in the upcoming week.
Nice Honda Goldwing. I had an 1981 and 1983 (1100) Honda Goldwing Interstates that I put lots of miles on. Great motorcycles....:)
 
I owned 2 in my riding years, the first was a 1200 Interstate, the second was the 2005 1800
I liked my 1983 Goldwing better than the 1981 because it seemed to cruise at lower rpms. I wind up trading the 1983(with cash added) for a 1984 BMW K100LT. I put a lot of miles on the K100LT. Rode it from Dallas to Portland(Oregon) and back, about 4900 miles.

I once rode the 1983 Goldwing to the Rio Grande Valley(where I live now) and encountered light snow from Waco up to where I lived in the Dallas area. Nothing like riding a motorcycle in light snow(sarcasm). I never had to use the good crash bars on the Goldwing and that's always a good thing...:)
 
View attachment 34483
My GoldWing inside the new wood room in Texas.
View attachment 34484View attachment 34486
This fixture was designed to make the Final Cut to length before final finishing.
Stock shown during length setup.
View attachment 34487
Some Prototypes.
View attachment 34485
Me during CNC programming and initial program editing. Because of my wild hair I was nicknamed Einstein.

Up to this point and at the end of my 3rd year I was transferred to Texas full time and added two more CNC machining CTR’s and started hiring and training operators.
View attachment 34488
A indexing machine was added to one CNC machine that was controlled by the program that would rotate the stock for machining all aspects of the cuts needed without having to remove the stock between individual cuts.

I worked for Mossberg for 5 years and
As I look through what amounts to be hundreds of photographs I’ll be posting more in the upcoming week.
Dude.

I would’ve called you “Sting”.
 
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