kits to build traditional black powder rifles like Hawkens.
I assembled a couple of those kits many years ago for my eldest son and me. They were very inexpensive, even at that time, from CVA. Got me interested in actually building, to use the term loosely, BP rifles. A modern rifle is a different principle however.
With muzzle loaders everything attaches to the stock and it is the glue that holds all the parts together. To me that makes the woodworking aspect primary. I can do that, been carving wood for grins all my life.
With modern rifles the base component is the action. Everything screws into or bolts onto it. Again, to me, that makes metalworking the primary aspect. And I make no claims to being a machinist! I have neither the knowledge or equipment required. ALL that work gets farmed out to people capable of doing it correctly. Once the action is all done, then maybe I can get involved in the woodworking angle. But even then, with the availability of really nice 99.999% inlet stocks, and (ugh!) synthetic stocks, that work is minimal!
Unfortunately, when you look at it from the cost angle, if you can't do it all - the woodwork and the metalwork - "building" a rifle is more like coordinating the assembly of a rifle and just plain expensive! Of course I'm not talking about taking that Turk Mauser you bought for $39.95, cutting the barrel and stock down with a hacksaw and gluing on some sights with epoxy either!
(No offense Bubba!)
I've got 2 rifle projects in the working stage now. A Rem M7 to be a .250 Savage, and a M96 Swede to be a 7x57. Two types of actions, one commercial and one military, with two sets of considerations. Great fun in the planning, decision making, etc. chores, and I can proceed at my own pace, which is very slowly... start looking at the pricing on the work involved and you can see why!
