Thread: A Lee Speed stock

Was able to make a start on the stock this morning and decided that because the Lee Enfield action is so prevalent throughout New Zealand that there may well be others that need to make a replacement stock so thought to do a reasonably detailed thread on the making of this one.

Starting with the barrelled action and the pattern boards.


Flattening one face of the blanks and squaring the top edge on the forestock.


And running them through the planer to give me true and parallel faces


You can see from the pattern board that a fore end tip was always going to be needed but is not important at this stage as I leave the tip until the B/A has been fully inletted. Here I am getting the draw face angle for the rear of the fore stock after which the saw is set and the draw face cut in.


A centerline is marked down the top of the forestock


And my pattern board for the inlet is centered on the line and marked in.


Having a spare action makes it simpler here and for the smoking in to keep the actual B/A clean and unmarked as can sometimes happen at that stage. In normal stock jobs the action is usually in the white and the blueing is all done after the stock is done so no stress about marking a B/A that has a very nice aged patina that I want to preserve. It dosent show well in the pic but there is a fine pencil line marked in for the start of the inlet.


Before making a start the chisels and hand router all need to have their blade edges fine tuned for sharp and clean. These are the main tool for inletting at this stage.


Marking inside the lines (about a mm) with chisel and taking out the waste wood having to be careful as there is a swirl in the grain that runs down into the wood going forward and will chip out if chiselled the wrong way. The old Granny's tooth ( hand router) makes a fine job of making sure the action bed is flat and parallel with the top edge.


With the action flat down to 19mm it can be left like this for the time being.


The lines are marked on to the centerline on the underside for major removal of the mag well wood and makes it easier to finish the action inlet.


And that is where I will leave it for today.