Home Made Thumbhole Stock for H&K 630 Rifle

[wachtelhund1]

I have a H&K 630 which I have used for years to shoot coyotes. It is a great gun, shoots any ammo accurately. The only thing I don't like is the factory stock. It has a very thin Schnabel fore end. Impossible to put a bipod on it. So about two years ago I decided to make a new stock for it. I have made several other stocks, but the H&K 630 proved challenging because I was making a different stock pattern and it had a side safety.

I did this one the hard way, first I made a stock duplicator. It took about a 1 1/2 year working on it several hours at a time with weeks passing in between. I built it and tried duplicating a stock, but each time I used it I saw areas needing refinements and would modify it. I performed this process several times, until I thought it was ready.

The master stock and new stock wood turn in sync through three 18 tooth sprockets and # 20 chain system. Turn one with a wrench and the second turns equally.

Earlier this spring I started making a master stock for the H&K 630. I made a master first out of maple because I planned on copying a Boyd’s thumbhole stock made for a Savage Mark II. I reproduced the thumbhole stock first then removed the thumbhole stock and put the H&K stock into the duplicator. I had to adjust the H&K stock to accommodate the difference in trigger location and trigger pull. Hence the need to made the master first. Also, the Savage stock was for a .22 lr while the H&K 630 stock was for a .223 Rem. I beefed up the thickness of the master in the areas of the fore end, butt and grip with bondo.

Reproducing the actual stock started two weeks ago. I was using a piece of air dried walnut cut 15 years ago. I didn’t want to make a mistake so I took my time and went slow. It took four hours to duplicate the outside of the thumbhole stock on one afternoon. Several hours the next day to copy the inletting of the H&K stock the next day. The setup time took the longest. Then I ruff sanded the new stock while in the duplicator, there where places that I couldn’t do in the duplicator. It looked pretty good when I took it out. Next was sanding with 150 grit sand paper. Then I mounted a butt pad and sanded it to the stock. More sanding with 220 grit paper. Then 330 grit paper and 400 grit. Then filled the pores with gun stock oil and small pieces of 400 grit sand paper, producing a sludge. After the sludge was dry I sanded it with 400 grit paper, then repeated the sludge process again. After that I added two more coats of hand rubbed stock oil followed by buffing with soft cotton. Then two hand rubbed coats of thinned polyurethane followed by buffing with soft cotton.

At present, I’m working on the side safety area. I’ve filled the removed wood section with glass bedding and milled out the bedding to match the plastic piece embedded in the H&K stock. Actually the bedding wasn’t thick enough and I filled it in with new bedding. Then I will begin glass bedding the action, filled by more sanding with 600 grit paper and coats of rubbing polyurethane.

[Snyper]

You did some excellent work there
You should be proud at how beautifully it turned out.