Fine Gunmaking

When Craig Libhart graduated from high school in the spring of 1971, he knew what he wanted to do: start the gunsmithing program at Trinidad State Junior College, in Colorado, that fall. Although there was a gunsmithing school close to his home in Pennsylvania, he had asked the advice of the late, great barrelmaker P.O. Ackley, who had convinced him with a handwritten reply to travel west for the best training. Libhart's only regret now is that he wishes he had kept Ackley's letter.
In 1973 Libhart headed home with more than an associate degree; he had a new wife and enough experience to immediately hire on as a machinist in a Pennsylvania pattern-making shop. For the next 20-plus years Libhart was a devoted husband and father of two and a company machinist, primarily machining rare-earth magnets for special applications.
Through that time he never lost interest in professional gunsmithing, and in 1997 he started reentry by setting up a small shop at his home and taking several different National Rifle Association-sponsored summer gunsmithing classes. Libhart started with... Read More »



a focus on double shotguns and stockmaking, beginning with an NRA course on checkering at Montgomery Community College, in Troy, North Carolina, and continuing with Jack Rowe's "Gunsmithing Double Guns" class. Later he studied "Custom Riflemaking" and "Gunsmithing Machine Shop" in NRA-sponsored classes at Trinidad State, where I met him in 1998 while I was teaching a class he took on "Single Shot Rifle Stockmaking."
It was a small, five-day class, and when Libhart and the handful of other students-all quite experienced-wanted to spend more time in the well-equipped drafting room working on designing and drawing custom stocks, I was more than willing to help them. I'm a big believer in creating guns on paper as much as possible, and I always make full-scale drawings prior to starting any new project. Having several students creating a variety of different projects at the same time gave everyone a greater understanding of the individual design elements such as butt height, pistol grip versus straight grip, comb-nose location and styling, metal-to-wood transitions, and how each and all of these could be blended together to create unique and distinctive gunstocks.
After learning the basics of layout and design, each student made full-scale renditions of at least four custom single-shot rifles-vintage and modern. During the 1-1/2 days we spent drafting, we discussed stylistic evolution, stock architecture, dimensional considerations and the methods and advantages of making custom stocks for individuals.
It was noted that single-shot rifles and double-barreled shotguns were developed during the same era and that there are more than passing similarities between the stock styles of each. Whenever a new or challenging concept presented itself, we all would gather around one drawing and discuss how particu-lar elements worked together or conflicted for functional ergo-nomics, visual design or technical craftsmanship. We were all very enthusiastic, and Libhart and I agreed that it was one of the most enjoyable times we've ever spent in a workshop.
Libhart went on to take the NRA-sponsored Bryan Bilinski/Michael McIntosh "Gunfitting Class" at Pine Technical College, in Minnesota, and he told me later that this class brought all that we explored in the design/drawing experience to a higher level of practical stockmaking.
Libhart and I have kept in touch through the years and, thanks to his early training and continuing education, I've watched him skip many of the "learning curve" steps and become a skilled journeyman stockmaker. Every couple of months I'll get an e-mail from him with questions about quality, efficiency or methods for making better gunstocks. The latest was about the potential to leave more wood in the head of a Fox stock-always an improvement-and what he suggested was exactly what I've done in the past.
Libhart's small shop next to his house features mostly hand tools along with the stockmaker's requisite bandsaw, disk sander, oxy-acetylene torch, drill press and small milling machine. We had a good laugh when I asked him about his hand-forged chisels. I attended Trinidad State a few years after Libhart's initial studies and remember that each beginning stockmaking student was required to hand forge a set of a dozen or so chisels (including one very useful dogleg chisel), gouges and scrapers prior to starting on a riflestock. Although some of our original chisels are no longer in daily use, we each have many others that we use regularly that were made by the same techniques. This gunsmithing school toolmaking exercise-forging, filing, hardening, tempering and sharpening-has proven to be one of the most valuable lessons in both of our careers.
the business he has built-Susquehanna Stockworks-Libhart specializes in two-piece stocks for shotguns and single-shot rifles. He also is adept at making bolt-action-rifle stocks. Although trained and fully capable of making stocks from blanks, he often employs pattern stocks for his shotgun services and puts a great emphasis on working with clients to ensure correct proportions and dimensions.
A lot of this work is for serious shooters and hunters. Clients usually seek out Libhart with an idea of stock dimensions and a gun that is being shot but needs to be stocked to fit. With his training in stockfitting, Libhart can readily translate a client's shot placement to a working set of stock dimensions for the client and his gun. He'll make a pattern stock using a take-off stock-semi-inlet or the original factory stock-to which material can be added or subtracted and the stock pattern altered much as a try-gun stock might be. The pattern stock may go back to the client two or three times, and Libhart encourages the client to try it on his normal course of shooting. When the client is mounting and shooting well with the gun in the pattern stock, the stock is removed from the metalwork and sent out for precise duplication. Libhart begins the stocking process with much of the shooting trial and error behind him. He stresses the advantages of this method and its importance in ensuring a practical and useful gunstock that does not require alterations afterward.
Libhart still works one day a week at the machine shop, providing a bit of steady income and allowing him the use of a full complement of machine tools. One stockmaking process made easier by machine tools is drilling the through-bolt hole for a buttstock that is held to the action with a long bolt under the buttplate. As you might imagine, for the first step, a 3/8" hole must be blind drilled through the full length of the blank. Libhart uses the same method we were taught in gunsmithing school, employing an engine lathe and a deep-hole, or gun, drill.
A gun drill cannot be purchased and must be shop-made. The one pictured on page 38 was made from a length of tool steel "drill rod," which is simply a 3/8" round bar of oil-hardening tool steel. Once the steel was cut to length, the ends were faced off square in the lathe, and then a quarter flute was machined away in the milling machine for chip clearance. The working end was ground away, creating a flat cutting face one-half of the diameter of the bar. This 3/16" flat, sharpened cutting edge will keep the drill pushing itself toward the center and is exactly the same type of drill used for drilling long sections of steel for rifle barrels, hence the term "gun drill."
To prepare the stock blank for drilling, Libhart draws the location of the hole on the side of the wood conforming to the appropriate stock layout. The ends where the drill hole will start and emerge are cut off square to the through-bolt hole; this ensures that the drill will start straight. Libhart squares across each end of the wood to locate the middle-thickness of the blank, and then deeply center-punches the location and starts the hole with a center drill.
Next the deep-hole drill is placed in the lathe chuck and a 60° center is placed in the lathe tailstock. One end of the stock is located on the tailstock center, and the deep-hole drill begins drilling into the opposite end. The blank is hand-held as the lathe's tailstock is advanced a few inches at a time, bringing the blank into the rotating drill. The chips are cleared every few inches, and then the drill is extended farther out of the lathe chuck and the wood blank advanced and drilled a few inches more. Libhart drills the stock blank about halfway through from one end and then turns it around and drills from the other end.
If the layout is correct, the drill started at the correct angles, and the chips cleared frequently, the two holes will meet precisely in the middle of the blank. The one long hole is then counter-bored for the larger bolt head and socket wrench; then the action can be drawn onto the stock for inletting.
The butt-drilling process seems complicated and uncertain, but it is simply the first step in the long process of making that type of stock. (This is a delicate and potentially dangerous procedure-both to the wood and the craftsman-and should not be undertaken by the inexperienced.)
In 2004 Libhart applied for and was accepted into the American Custom Gunmakers Guild (ACGG) as a stockmaker. As part of the entrance requirements in that category, applicants must present two finished, checkered and completed stocks as representative samples of their work. One must be made entirely from the blank, with no machine inletting or carving. The voting members in attendance examine the anonymous work and vote on membership. I was pleased to vote for Libhart's entrance.
Professional references are also required for ACGG membership, and that reminded me of Libhart's interest during our stockmaking class at Trinidad in the business aspects of the trade. Our group had lengthy discussions about scheduling, delivery, pricing and the many requirements of small-shop gunsmithing beyond the benchwork. Libhart is a thoughtful and introspective man and has a great desire to "do the right things" in the quality of his work and the professionalism of his business.
He currently focuses on stockmaking alone, doing no repair work or general gunsmithing. He prefers to use the many varieties of English walnut, and he keeps a dozen to 15 two-piece sets of cured stock blanks on hand. He's not a fan of flamboyant walnut and tends toward the conservative when picking blanks. He prefers quarter-sawn wood and grades blanks by these criteria: layout, for strength and stability; visual symmetry, matching side to side; color contrast; and last, figure. He says he must personally "like" a blank so that he will look forward to making a stock from it.
Libhart is comfortable stocking guns without refinishing the original metalwork. He offers his version of traditional oil stock finishing and rust bluing for his own projects. He charges flat rates or by the hour, depending upon the job, and he's backlogged with work for about a year and quotes delivery at four to six months from the start of the job.
With the popularity of double guns and the myriad of gunsmithing services these guns can require, it's good to see specialists. This stockmaking specialist should be a popular one.

Author's Note: For more information on Susquehanna Stockworks, contact Craig Libhart, 717-367-3414; www.susquehannastockworks.com.

Autographed copies of Steven Dodd Hughes's most recent book, Double Guns and Custom Gunsmithing, are available for $48 postpaid from the author, PO Box 545, Livingston, MT 59047.