Looking for Inletted forends

[gmww]

As an Underhammer enthusiast, I'm always looking for spare barrels to use on my guns. The most difficult part about this is finding a cheap supplier of forend stocks that are inletted. I'm not talking finished stocks. Just inletted for the barrels. I'd like to be able to get Maple stocks of various styles that are inletted for the different width of barrels. Anyone one know of such a supplier?

 

[mikelange]

If I understand you correctly, you're talking about a forend to fit the underside of an octagon barrel, that doesn't have to mate up to an action (as it would on, say, a Winchester lever gun or Lee-Enfield bolt rifle). If "inexpensive" is an important priority, I would think a chunk of maple no more than 1 1/2" square by maybe 18" long, squared on a table saw and inletted with 3/8" 45 degree and straight router bits, would do the trick.

While acquiring suitably-sized blocks of decent maple might seem like a challenge, it just so happens I live six miles from Friendship, IN, and the Spring Shoots are starting in a few weeks. A number of vendors sell cut-offs of good-grape curly maple and other woods. If making your own forends seems like it might be an option and you need a few pieces of wood, fire me a PT and we could work out a way of getting some splinters sent your way.

 

[gmww]

I appreciate the offer. My wood working tools are limited to hand tools. I was hoping to find a supplier that has the pre-inletted front stocks. I have purchased chunks of plain maple like you suggested. I just hate bugging my buddies with table saws and routers to inlet my projects.

Thanks again though! That's what I like about his forum. Good guys willing to help! :hatsoff:

 

[TN Hick]

Say, Mongrel. Just ezzactly when are the Friendship Shoots. My wife has been buggin me to take her somewhere and I just might surprise her. Friendship is far enough away that she probably won't stay that mad that long. :yakyak: :grin:

TN Hick

 

[Zonie]

"My wood working tools are limited to hand tools."

gmww: There's your problem! :grin:

If you save up your pennys you can do as I did and go to the pawn shop and buy your own router for a few bucks. Make sure it has a fence attachment or just buy one plus a couple of router bits.
Don't try to save money on the bits though. Get the Carbide ones.
These hardwoods we play with burn up the plain steel router bits in no time.

 

[gmww]

LOL it's not that I don't have money for the tools, the doctor finally allowed me to play with sharp objects last week. :youcrazy:

 

[mikelange]

The spring shoots are June 10-18, and the fall shoots run from September 9th through the 17th. They always take place from the second through the third weekends of June and September.

It invariably rains like a sampler of Noah's Flood at least a couple of days during the June shoots, so come prepared for that. There are also two fairly good-sized flea markets on either end of the Walter Cline Range grounds, and yard sales all over the towns of Friendship and Dillsboro (where I live, and through which most people pass on their way into Friendship, since the street on which I live also happens to be State Highway 62), so even if your wife isn't thrilled about the shoots she's liable to find shopping enough to keep her happy. Truthfully, since my firearms interests go beyond muzzleloaders, I find I spend as much time and money in the flea markets as I do among the booths and traders' tents at the shoots themselves.