Artistic Embellishment

How to customize your rifle's stock with fore-end tips and grip caps

In the last half-century contrasting fore-end tips and grip caps have become part and parcel of the
wood gunstock. True, some utilitarian types could care less whether a gun has them, and a small
handful of dilettantes consider them gaudy fluff that detracts from the purity of the stock. Most of us,
though, feel a stock looks naked without them, and their omission is perhaps a sign of cheapness-which, obviously, is not necessarily the case.
Some of the most oft-asked questions I receive from budding stockmakers involve these stock
accouterments, so here are some tips if you're interested in tinkering with the appearance of your own
stock.
The first step is to decide on the style of grip cap or fore-end embellishment and material you want to
use. Back in the 1950s and '60s, fore-end tips and grip caps got outlandishly wild. Long, squarish foreend tips were installed with weird angling joints, and thick, monstrous grip caps formed raking hooks
on the bottom of the grip. These were often made of light-colored wood or even ivory. This style-though harmless, I suppose--is completely out of vogue today.
Much more timeless and tasteful--I think--is the classic-style fore-end tip and grip cap made from a
quality, dark-colored material. Plastic is tolerated on a factory gun, but it's unacceptable for a fine
custom firearm, at least in some circles. In the good ol' days, horn from either Asian or African buffalo
was commonly used on the highest-grade guns, but it was prone to cracking.
I once spent untold hours beavering out a fore-end tip from a Cape buffalo horn I had picked up while
in Africa. Not wanting it to be glossy, I just gave it a light coat of Lin-Speed, a fast-drying linseedtype oil. At first it did, indeed, look mighty dowdy, but within a couple of years it was all cracked and
checked. The epitome of "elite," horn must be heavily finished with a deep-penetrating, oil-type finish
to prevent cracking over time. It must also receive routine maintenance coats to keep it from drying
out, something few gun owners care to bother with.
Without question the best fore-end tip material is ebony. Brownell's usually carries ebony pieces, as do
some stock blank suppliers. If you just have to be different, a really dark, reddish-brown piece of
rosewood is also appealing. A word of caution: I have encountered rosewood so oily that stock finish,
no matter what type, absolutely refuses to dry. I've tried degreasers, epoxy finishes--you name it--and
nothing helps. In such cases, all you can do is whack it off and go to something else.

With grip caps there is more to consider than just aesthetics. The grip cap prevents the delicate bottom
of the grip--with its angling grain--from getting battered and chipped. You can use ebony or rosewood,
which are harder than walnut, as a grip-cap material, laying the grain out straight to lessen the chance
of chipping. But it's still wood, and you're not gaining a lot with respect to durability. I use steel grip
caps exclusively. Some models are dirt-cheap; they look nice and provide the ultimate in protection.
With a steel grip cap, the stock has to be shaped to fit the cap rather than shaping the cap to fit the
stock. But that's a minor inconvenience.
The Dirty Work Making and installing fore-end tips and grip caps is not difficult but does take
patience.
Let's start at the front. There are no rules for fore-end tip length. Proportion the length of the tip to the
fore-end, but don't overdo the length, which may make the rifle appear to be out of proportion. I make
most of mine around 134 inches long and never more than two inches.
The biggest trick is in mating the tip to the stock with a perfect joint. I leave the fore-end a tad long
and shape it pretty close to its final contour, then cut it to length by eyeball. Gently clamp the stock in
a vise with the fore-end sticking up vertically, and sand it perfectly flat and true with 80-grit paper. I
use a quarter-inch-thick piece of glass--about twice as wide as the fore-end--to back the sandpaper,
which is taped tightly to the glass. Take great care not to rock the sanding block while sanding. Do the
same thing with the tip blank. Cut it slightly oversize and as square as possible, and true up the joint
end with the sandpaper block.
You could probably get away with just gluing the tip to the fore-end with "2-Ton"-type epoxy or
Accraglas, but to remove all doubt I reinforce the joint with a couple of small wood or fiberglass
dowels. To do this, you simply drill oversize, corresponding holes in the stock and fore-end tip and
cover the surfaces with epoxy, partially filling the holes in the process. Insert the dowels, and position
the tip to the fore-end. Be sure to locate the dowels so they clear the barrel channel. A large, stout
rubber band or two holds the tip in place while the epoxy sets. Once the epoxy has fully cured, cut the
barrel channel into the tip and shape it to your heart's desire.
Installing the grip cap requires pretty much the same process. True the bottom of the stock and cap
just as with the fore-end. If you're making your own cap, it's easier to get it uniform by shaping it first,
then pinning (with dowels) and gluing it to the stock, then shaping the stock to match the cap.
Most steel grip caps are attached with one or two screws. To ensure the cap never shifts, I bed it to the
wood with epoxy. True the bottom of the steel cap by running it over the glass-backed 80-grit
sandpaper. Locate and drill the screw holes, coat the screw lightly with grease, and run them in and
out of the holes in the stock to pre-cut the threads. Remove all remnants of grease from the wood.
Give the screws another light coat of grease as a release agent, along with the the hollow bottom of the
cap. Fill the bottom of the cap with epoxy, and screw it in place.
After the epoxy sets, align the screw slot with the stock--from tip to butt--by removing the screws and
deepening the countersinks in the grip cap. With a sharp drill bit, remove only small amounts of steel
at a time from the cap, and check the screw slot alignment often. After the stock is all shaped and
ready for finishing, remove the grip cap, polish it and finish it with bluing or color case-hardening as
you desire.
You don't have to be a trained gunsmith to manage either of these projects. All it takes is a little bit of
time and creativity, and you can add that "custom" touch to an otherwise ordinary rifle.