Jerry,
I'm with you on the housing and will leave it as is.
I helped Michael move boxes of books in early September and was forced to look at and feign interest in his Springfields before he allowed me to leave. I was nearly finished with my .404 Jeffery project and looking for another and this sparked my interest in building a Springfield.
Through Michael's generosity I again had a chance to handle and study details of a wide array of makers. By this time I had settled on the .400 Whelen for the chambering and I was settling on the Surkamer as the primary stock profile. Then he started handing me rifle after rifle pointing out things and I left in total confusion. Following another visit several weeks later I decided to incorporate features that I liked from a number of the rifles.
Two more settled details:
No cylindrical barrel section just forward of the action; and; Surkamer stock profile.
Here is the rifle I started with.
Here is the wood, nothing fancy but quite adequate.
