doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Cost of stocking a sidelock action

RWTX, the Steve McQueen caper was pure fiction. Never happened, not even close. My father was one of the organizers of The Great Escape at Stalag Luft III.

His closest buddies were the security and tunneling bosses, George Harsh, a very rich American who did 12 years on a Georgia chain gang, and Wally Floody, a Canadian hardrock miner.

Wally, a consultant on the film, said "Aw hell, if it (the motorcycle caper) makes a good story, let 'er go." For real drama, read Harsh's Lonesome Road, a wonderful writer, humanist and US hero.

When he botched a suicide attempt and wasn't doing well in US military hospital, Wally, my father and his other Canadian wartime flying buddies brought him to Sunnybrook in Toronto, the best in the country.

He died happily here with his Canadian "family."

Nitrah +1

King Brown et al: In the old country, I was taught that there no Yanks if Stalag Luft III when the escape was made!

Could I have been misinformed?

Franchi

For those interested, here are a couple shots of some stocks from AYA #1s and #56 (the pigeon gun version on the #1... both same quality)

Adam

Very nice Adam........I especially like the wood finish on those stocks with some "wood pores" still showing as wood should be.......the all filled pores to me look fake and plastic, like the CZ satin stock finish and some others we've seen posted........wood should always look like wood........

Some folks refinish to fill all the pores, but to me they look really plastic, with a bowling pin look......

Most original guns pre WWII had some wood pores showing, no matter how highly polished.

Thanks for posting Adam......


NEW $25,000.00 KRIEGOFF WITH NICE STOCK WORK AND SOME OPEN PORES FOR THE REAL WOOD LOOK........




Best,

Nice and I agree that you need some pores showing to make it really look like wood.I like "longer" diamonds on my checkering though.

...and the rain collects and soaks in each an every unfilled pore...
but you can have it any way you want.

Franchi, there were lots of Americans among the 10,000 Allied airmen in Stalag Luft III. As I write there's a portrait on the wall of my father as a POW in Stalag Luft III by Lieutenant John Lundquist USAAF. From all over the United States, some 240 pilots made their way to Britain when she stood alone against Germany, many becoming aces in the RAF Eagle squadrons 1940-42 and later the USAAF. They were delighted to get away from Brewsters and into Hurricanes. Many Americans joined the Royal Canadian Air Force through a recruiting program set up in New York City under the command of Canada's leading First World War ace Billy Bishop, 72 kills. (I just googled the number of Americans in the camp: 7,500.)

Wow- great stuff indeed. Stalag (Stockade) Luft (Air or aviation). McQueen did all his own stunts in that movie, no doubles- even the last motorcycle ride towards Switzerland and possible freedom. My favorite poem is "High Flight" written by Canadian John Gillespie McGee Jr. He died in a plane crash in 1941 (year I was born) while still in Canada- practice flight that went wrong- he had his orders to report to the RAF in England-- two books you might like to read, unless you already have: (1) "The Big Show" by RAF pilot Pierre Clostermann- describes the Battle of Britian- Radar and the longer flight lines for the Luftwaffe fighters in 1940 to get over England gave the Brits a slight edge- (2) The Eagle Has Landed- fiction about a Abwehr plot to kidnap Churchill from a weekend retreat in the Northern marshy areas of England-- a bit of Gen. Otto Skerzensky and his "Schirmfalljaeger" troops and a special op- involving both sea and air- the pilot chosen for this mission, even though he had over 40 kills in his ME-109 (mostly B-17's) had yet to receive his Ritter Kruz (Knight's Cross) from "Fat Boy" Hermann Goring at Karinhall-the usual Luftwaffe tradition- why? because he had the audacity to tell Goring to his fat face why the British SuperMarine Spitfire was a better fighter in a dogfight than his ME-109- Old "Fat Boy" didn't much like to hear that I guess- it's fiction, but a great read, and in a somewhat believable scenario.

My first wife's uncle Jack was a navigator on a B-17 on the raids on the Polesti oil refineries in Rumania- their plane was shot up, they all parachuted out- deep in Naxi territory, and were captured and ended up in a Stalag Luft (number unknown) Like in "The Great Escape" the CO was a Luftwaffe Oberst (Full Bird Col.)- but the German guards did random inspections and counted all the boards and studs in each barrack at random, the POW's were never given gardening or any other tools- they mainly played baseball and soccer- BUT-
when a Gestapo Major (Hauptsturmbannfueher) showed up and demanded the CO turn over all the POWs that were Jewish to him, the CO refused. The camp was liberated in March 1945. Her uncle said that their captors would often open their Red Cross packages and get the American cigarettes and Hershey bars- He spoke fluent German, but was smart enough not to let guards know that--

Been watching this thread since it's start but it had become a little lost and until now I felt a straight forward answerr to the original question would have got lost in the flack!
Now things have settled:
The Blanch back action SLE that I posted (http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=246592#Post246592)
cost about �1100 ($1700 approx) including chequering and oil finish, wood extra.
Knowing a little more than I did then, that is about 1/2 to 1/3 of what it would have cost to have it done by a time served stocker in the UK at trade prices to the same standard.
I used D'Arcy Echols to copy the original (inc forend) which I had modified to my (very) approximate dimension ($650). I then passed it to a time served stocker in the UK who did the final fit of locks and action and shaped the body of the stock to my chosen style and exact dimensions ($500). I then had the chequering done by a trade expert ($400) and did the oil finish myself ($250).
One of the advantages of using a stock copier of the quality of D'Arcy is that you get inletting of the same quality as the original which with a turn of the century English gun can be very good indeed. In fact he left the inletting 0.005-0.010" proud on the inner surfaces so that the stocker could work the wood back to a perfect fit at minimal expence.
As regards the question addressed earlier about the function of perfect inletting formed around each component, this can be crucial in many sidelocks as the wood thickness between the lock inletting and trigger groups, ssfety & lever work can be only thousandths thick. The slithers of wood between components can make all the difference between these thin wals crumbling and the stock remaining sound through centuaries of use and many thousands of shot cycles. Also as discussed it can stop bridle and spring screws backing out and contain broken springs.
New stocks' inletting can be sealed with a variety of substances: I have heard recommendations for 'Knotting compound', 'French Polish' (not disimilar) and the stock finishers favoured stock finish. All work fine in my experience.