Gunsmithing

I always feel the urge to then explain that building a gun stock is not hard; it only takes time and some basic woodworking skills. Whether it be for your granddad’s worn down hunting rifle or for your custom precision rifle, this article is going to be a walkthrough of how you, the “average joe”, can build your own rifle stock like you have always wanted to.

Fed up with eyeballing and Home Depot bubble levels, I finally reached out to Wheeler Engineering and Straight Shot, LLC. Both companies have designed devices that, ostensibly, take the guesswork out of reticle leveling.

This particular class was obviously not a beginner’s course. But there are plenty to choose from that are in the NRA Summer Gunsmithing Program.

This particular class is the Advanced Machine Shop class. As the name implies, it has some pre-requisites. The class is basically geared towards chambering barrels, but other projects are also permitted. I wanted to build a precision bolt action rifle. So, I spent the week blueprinting the action and doing the related barrel work. Obviously, this is not going to be an absolute guide to chambering and fitting a barrel. But I wanted to give you an idea of what it does entail.

There’s nothing worse than having the zero on your rifle shift or change. I’ve had it happen on several occasions and it can be a frustrating experience. Below are three things that I’ve started doing that have helped prevent loss of zero on my rifles.

While it’s not a perfect, crisp as a Pringle 1911 trigger, it’s close. Very close. For a striker-fired pistol, it’s extraordinarily good. The flat face took me a few rounds to get used to, but when I allowed my finger to rest naturally on the trigger, migrating toward the lower end of the shoe as intended with the resulting increase in leverage, I grew to like it. For the final analysis, I applied the Lyman trigger gauge once more.

The Tipton Ultra Gun Vise and Max Force Cleaning Rods are exactly what you need this winter to keep your guns clean, dry and operational.

I recently bought a Shield for concealed carry. The stock trigger is better than I expected, but I wanted something a little lighter. I want every component to be as effective as possible. Towards that end, I purchased the Apex Tactical Flat-Faced Trigger and Duty/Carry Kit. The kit comes with everything you need to make your trigger lighter and, more importantly, smoother.

So often when I see firearm upgrade videos though, the modifications are usually extensive and well beyond most budgets. We thought it’d be fun then to do a video that focused on easy modifications a person could do to their pistol with a more reasonable budget. So armed with $100 I started perusing the local gunshops and online to find the parts and pieces that I’d need to modify my bone stock Glock 34 Gen4 to ready it for competition.