To say this project has been a wild ride would be an understatement. I had a stock maker picked out and then he jumped his prices by a lot, and pushed his timeframe way back. Then I found a little known stock maker near me that agreed to the project. I saw some of his work which was pretty good, only to have his saw come lose while cutting on the blank I purchased from Dressels, which ruined the blank. I wasn’t comfortable with him continuing the project, so I called Donnie Gemes in Missouri who restocked a Pre-64 for me to see if he had any recommendations. Donnie is no longer making rifle stocks but he put me onto Ebbie Jones at Tsavo Custom Firearms. Donnie told me Ebbie worked for him for several years before going out on his own, and that he was very, very good. Ebbie told me he could get the stock made within my crunched timeline (leaving in June for Zambia) and he even helped out finding the blank. I loved the original Kimber dimensions, but wanted a cheek piece. That made Ebbies job easier since he could use his duplicator. Well, I don’t have the stock back yet as he just started working on it, but let’s just say I’m a little excited. It will have an ebony’s forend, wrap around checkering, red butt pad, and two screw swivel studs. I’m really happy with the layout.
The right side lost a little grain from the blank, but it should still be pretty nice. If the pad gets here this week, Ebbie should start putting the finish on next week.
He just duplicated the factory stock, but added a check piece. The pattern is nothing special, but it fits really well in my hands, so I didn’t want it changed.
A little hiccup with the checkering (my fault) but it turned out pretty well. I thought I told him I wanted wraparound, but looked back on my texts and I never specified. Ebbie matched the original Kimber checkering, but I think we have a fix. Overall, I’m happy.
