Thread: Lightweight 223 project

For quite a while I’ve wanted to make a lightweight 223.
With budgets never extending to a beautiful stock from one of the carbon stock guru’s like the late Ken.

I’ve had a lot to do with composites through boat building and a common product has always tweaked my interest. PET foam core. It’s what high speed racing yachts are made from and forms a core in many composite constructions. It shapes easily and is incredibly light. The joy is that it shapes very easily with 40grit sandpaper yet is super strong.

One reservation however was always how to do the inletting? This is where I was excited to stumble across https://www.vtp.co.nz/

A quick call and VTP was printing a core for a Howa mini. Amazing service too!



Here’s a couple of progress shots. I intend to do the first one in fiberglass to see how it goes, then I’ll switch to carbon for the next.