Making a wooden cheekpiece

Recently bought adjustable cheekpiece
for competition rifle and became dissapointed
by how uncomfortable is it to rest your cheek
againts piece of bent aluminum alloy sheet.
Even at room temerature you instinctively lift
your cheek from its surface, as dont want to
rest it on something that cold.
I cant imagine to shoot for hours in just
slightly cold weather..

This led me to try to make a wooden
cheekpiece in a modern design.

I had some maple blocks which would be ok
so decided to thermally treat them put them
into the oven for 4h at 50C to ensure they
are dry enough, then raised temperature
to 162C for 18h and cooled them slowly
in closed oven.. (picture).
When oven temp was under 50C I took blocks
out and immediately put a thin coat of edible
frying oil on them to "close the wood".



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/21/2021 10:41PM by JSCT.

Blocks I was thermally treating were
already roughly preshaped by using
saw and rough P60 abrasive.

After treatment I decided the orientation
based on the wood layers structure.

Mill was used to remove material at
105 degree angle and leave a desired
thickness. If You dont have mill same
could be done faster with less precision
by saw (picture).

Next I used an aluminum square bar rod
which was properly flattened
on which I glued a sand paper.
Used it same way as file except
I was sure working insides will leave
flat surfaces so finished cheekpiece
will properly sit with no play when mounted.

I have a rifle I would like to add a cheek piece for using a scope. On my Henry lever action I’d like to add a scope but it’s a little off on cheek alignment with that. I’d never try it by adding wood. I thought about a leather one though. Nothing like a target rifle stock but it would make the decision to add a scope easier. How did you know how high to make it?

Quote
me2
How did you know how high to make it?

Well I didnt have that problem because
the whole cheekpiece is adjustable for
height, side movement and rotation
around vertical axis.

I will show rest of the process in the next
posts, havent had time to write it all yet.

If I would have a rifle with a typical hunting
stock, I would also make a wooden cheek
-piece, whatever would be its height
would ve milled / ground off the rear stock
and would add spacers between stock and
cheekpiece to adjust height - just having
2 screws going throught cheekpiece and
spacer into some insert in the stock.

Next I used grinder to remove excess
material by P60 grit and closer to finished
used lapping machine - last grit was P320.
Same for chamfers see pics..

Because it was about a week from
thermal treatment untill done, I have put
cheekpieces into oven for 2h at 60C
to ensure wood is dry and applied
a tung oil.

Yet I havent drilled holes as not sure
where it would be most optimal to place them.

JSCT,
Wow, that is some nice work. I want to somehow get a scope mounted to my Polish M44 Mosin-Nagant.

So here is the bigger one finished - all it needs is a few more oil coats..

JS Cutting Tools
instagram.com/jscuttingtools

Nice work! Man, that is an awesome rifle!

That’s a pretty snazzy target set up you have there. 22 Long Rifle? Or one of the bench rest calibers?