Gun Cabinet

[ron]

I am building a gun cabinet and I have a couple questions. The method, I want to use, to display my hand guns, is to have rods or dowels that I could slide the barrel of the hand gun onto, suspending the gun by the barrel. What material should I use for the dowels? Can wood hold enough moisture to rust the inside of the barrel, or would some type of plastic be a better choice. Now, I know we are all wood workers and not gun smiths, however, does any one know if suspending a gun in this manner will do any damage to the gun?

[randyswoodshoop]

I would use oak for the dowels. Make sure you seal the wood with a few coats of clear polyurethene, you should not get any mositure from the wood.

Randy

[Mark & Juanita]

[Ross Hebeisen]

I agree I would not use oak because of the acid in oak and it's interaction with metal. good dry hard maple or birch would be my choice, even basswood while not being the strongest would more than likely do well for the job, after all how heavy could a hand gun be? ross

[Leon]

I would strongly resist using wood in the barrel. I would go with plastic. Wood could expand with temperature changes, cause rust with a moisture or natural content release.

Perhaps, use a cleaning rod/brush in the correct caliber to firmly hold the gun in place.

[Tom B]

1. What you're suggesting works fine. Most of my 20 odd handguns are stored that way. Rusting has never been an issue.

1. I suggest you avoid oak dowels. Birch is better (tannic acid is heavy in oak).

2. I finished mine with poly for abrasion resistance. The lands in a rifled barrel are supposed to have sharp edges!

1. Give yourself some room. What you don't want is a tight fit of the dowel in the barrel. 1/4 dowel in a .38 barrel is about right. I haven't found wood dowels to work for .22s, so I use cut off pieces of cleaning rod for them.

2. Weight should be an issue with MOST handguns, but I did go up to

3/8 dowel for my FA .454 Casul and a couple of Contenders..

I'm only an amateur gunsmith (i.e. I don't get paid for it). See

an eample of my work.

Regards.

Tom

[Tim Douglass]

Nice looking stock. I've always wanted to try making a custom stock, but the cost of nice stock wood has put me off.

-- "We need to make a sacrifice to the gods, find me a young virgin... oh, and bring something to kill"

Tim Douglass

[Tom B]

Thanks.

The blank can a bit costly (I paid about $250 for that one), but the results can be unique. That stock fits my skinny face like a glove. The big scope required a high mount, so the high comb was necessary if I wanted a normal cheek weld. You can't buy the fit, you've gotta make it.

The barrel is a Douglass, the action a Rem 700 lapped and polished - smooth as glass. The trigger is a Timmney, no more need be said, and breaks at 1.75#. It shoots to .5 off a lead sled (I can't hold that tight by hand).

Regards.

Tom

[Tom Watson]

I gotta tell you -that is one beautiful son of a bitch!

Regards,

Tom

Thos.J.Watson - Cabinetmaker tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet

[ron]

Thanks to all for your suggestions, as usual, this is still the best place to come for these perplexing little questions I always seem to have. Hey Tim, impressive work.

[ron]

Sorry Tim And Tom I got your names mixed up. Good job Tom. I guess these old eyes need stronger glasses.

[Mark & Juanita]

... snip

Very nice work

[Tim Douglass]

Sweet. I'm in the process of trying to sort out some stock/bedding issues on an old Parker-Hale 22/250 I just got. Terrible vertical stringing. I have a Timmney trigger in the plans for it as well if I can get it grouping better.

Tim Douglass

of a teenager: God's punishment for enjoying sex.

[DGDevin]

In some parts of the country wood & glass gun cases have disappeared from stores because of safe storage laws, they are not considered secure enough to prevent unauthorized access and/or theft of the weapons. Have you checked the law in your area in that regard?

[Tom B]

Tom:

Considering some of the work you do, I accept that as a high compliment. Thank you.

Tom

[Tom B]

Tim, Tom, WTH. I've been called worse.

One of my old Army NCOs in 'Nam had a remarkable command of Anglo Saxon venacular and was quite willing to use it on and to a young "butter bar", appropriately prefixed and suffixed with the required honorific - "sir". I learned a lot from that guy, some of which I'm still able to use in impolite company. For the rest, he kept me and most of my guys alive. That's a goodness.

Anyway Ron, thanks.

Tom

[Tom B]

Thank you.

Tom

[Tom B]

Tim:

22/250 is famous for eating barrels. You say it's old. PH makes good barrels (or did), but. You've probably already done so, but take a GOOD look at the lands. It's bore scope time - before time and money are spent trying to fix the irreparable.

If it's only stringing vertically, try increasing the pressure on the front end of the barrel. I've used something as simple as a piece of card stock in the muzzle end of the barrel channel to see if additional (or any) pressure out there helps. If it does, you can build up a pressure point with epoxy, bed the barrel it, and away you go.

I always do that first, because rebedding the action to the forcing cone may not do squat if the barrel is whipping around forward of there.

Regards.

Tom

[ron]

You know, I hadn't given a thought to the legality of a gun cabinet. Living in Texas, I can't imagine anything to do with private ownership of guns to be illegal...yet. As far as theft goes, I know a gun cabinet is not very secure, however, I do not have any irreplaceable firearms. I just hope the thief steals the guns and doesn't damage the cabinet. It was too much work to build.

[Lew Hodgett]

If you keep the ammo in a secure locker, locked with a lock that has only your key along all weapons being kept unloaded and secured with trigger locks, you will have gone a long way towards limiting your potential liability.

Lew