Cherry Build Pg 2- Question

[Erzulis boat]

The cheekpiece is squared off, with a concave face. There is no "castoff", but the comb inclines to the right. Since I will be using a small "Hawken" style buttplate, I will be able to shoulder it in a conventional manner, and decided to forego any castoff.

QUESTION FOR THE SITE-
I am going to set up the barrel next (breechplug, rib, thimbles etc.) and will be shortening and crowning the barrel.
It is a 15/16" GM .54 cal.- The 36" barrel is too long for this hunting rifle build, and would appreciate any input on a reasonable shorter barrel length. I am contemplating 30" of useable barrel (breechplug face to muzzle) or possibly shorter. Any ideas?
And just for information's sake, how short has anybody gone with reasonable (efficient) performance?

 

[rich pierce]

I have a trade rifle with a 30" barrel and it's fine, but I prefer 33-34" on Hawken re-creations and think they look better. 30" looks stubby to me nowadays and looking at original percussion rifles from the 1840's and 1850's, it seems 32-34" was much more common than 30" or less. It's just personal preference. As far as efficiency is concerned, you can get plenty of knock down power from a 28" .50 caliber rifle if you prefer a shorter gun.

 

[Stumpkiller]

How did you know where to put the cheekpiece if the barrel wasn't set in place already?

I thought the flow of events was: the barrel determines the vent/nipple placement, determines the lock placement, determines the trigger placement, determines the length of pull, determines the buttplate placement, determines the cheekpiece placement.

 

[Erzulis boat]

Everything is long, and the barrel channel, lock panels etc. are within 1/8" of final location. My LOP on a straight wristed stock is 14".(average)
I know exactly where everything goes in relation to sear, trigger and nipple location. I am using a Davis double-set, and know the sear location.
I prefer to oversize shape, then shoulder it. My biggest concern typically is ensuring that my thumb does not obscure the sights, and the LOP.
On the next installation of Cherry Build, you might see a method to my madness!
:g
Actually, the rifle was blueprinted in it's entirety (sans barrel length) so there are no real surprises. The location of components is not haphazard, they only interact within one dimension, and this includes the triggerguard.

 

[rich pierce]

How did you know where to put the cheekpiece if the barrel wasn't set in place already?

I thought the flow of events was: the barrel determines the vent/nipple placement, determines the lock placement, determines the trigger placement, determines the length of pull, determines the buttplate placement, determines the cheekpiece placement.

Stump, this is EXACTLY why I do not like precarved stocks. They do not give you any leeway at all.

• If you move the barrel forward or backward, now the wrist is longer or shorter.
  Moving the barrel fore or aft changes where the belly of the stock begins- and that affects both the vertical thickness of the wrist and the slope and overall height of the buttstock at any given pull length on a pre-carve.
  Anything that causes you to modify the vertical height of the wrist also affects the mass of the buttstock and the height of the comb above the wrist.
  Changing the length of pull alters entirely the height of the buttplate and buttstock that can be achieved.
  Changing the drop at the heel changes the height of the buttstock and height of the buttplate

The hardest build I ever did in my life was a fullstock Hawken on a pre-carved stock. Hawkens are very hard to build as is. Add in the necessity of matching curves on the long tang and the double-set triggers to a pre-carve made it double trouble.

I'll probably never use another precarved stock in my life unless I am building a kit and am perfectly happy to have the architecture pre-determined (average).