You 257 Bob fans ....

[wunbe]

might be interested in a custom AI Bob I just received from the smith. (If you send me your email address I'll send you some pictures. My picts are pretty amateurish but you'll get the idea. I cannot post directly to sites like this.)

This one is by far the fanciest project rifle I will ever own. It has a free floated, 21 inch, octagonal barrel from McGowan; color case hardened receiver and recoil plate; a custom quarter rib and ltwt custom rings that ride back over the receiver ring; a European type, thin, fore end with black cap that is mounted to the hanger instead of to the receiver in the standard slanted manner; and a cheek piece with shadow line. No iron sights.

The wood is from a very nice slab of black walnut with lots of feature. There is a second stock -- still being checkered -- that has an English style, shotgun, grip and a schnabled fore end tip. (It came into being as a fluke. I had two stock sets from the same piece of wood and the first one broke at the wrist during the first test firing. The smith repaired it with pins and the repair is all but invisible now. He fired another box of rounds through it and it passed muster so I ended up with two stocks -- one for field use and one for show.)

Unscoped, it weighs 7.1 lbs.

wunbe

 

[Otony]

What action did you use?

 

[wunbe]

Otony,

Ruger 1B in 7mm RM.

wunbe

 

[Greg Mercurio]

Wunbe sent me the photos so he could share with the rest of us:

 

[Greg Mercurio]

Excuse me for drooling.

 

[Nomosendero]

That is one beautiful rifle!!

 

[Mike Armstrong]

Classic: the rifle of a lifetime. And you COULD kill something with it, too.

One feature I really like is the open pistol grip that resembles a fine double shotgun. Stocker knew what he was doin'!

 

[wunbe]

Mike,

That feature wowed me too. I asked him to slim down and shorten the foreend as close as he could to a European splinter style w/o sacrificing strength. He did a great job. What does not show in the picts is that the ebony cap is scalloped into wood on the sides and the bottom -- a very difficult undertaking which also turned out great.

The rib too is his own custom work.

wunbe

 

[dfletcher]

Wow! Extending the wood flats both in front & back of the receiver is a nice touch. I'm curious on two points, one practical and one just about looks.

Regarding free floating the forend, how is that done? And regarding the detach scope ring levers, if there is such a thing, what's the best "acceptable" position for them to be in - turned in against each other, as on the rifle pictured? Or both flat but in the forward position? Forward but in the 9 o'clock position?

 

[wunbe]

dsf,

I have free floated several #1 foreends. It is easy to do but you must take your time doing a little sanding at a time and then replacing the stock several times to check spacing. Many NIB #1s that I have bought have had uneven metal/wood contact needed such a fix.

I use sandpaper wrapped around a dowel that just fits the barrel channel in the stock until a dollar bill just barely slips freely from the foreend tip almost to the receiver. The gaps from metal to wood should be hardly noticeable and even on both sides along the length of the barrel. Most guys stop there.

You can finish the job right by putting lamp black on the barrel, reseating the foreend, and firing the rifle. (You can still get barrel/foreend contacts as the barrel vibrates during firing. If that contact is heavy on just one side, your groups can go to pot.) Remove the wood and sand down any black marks on the wood. Repeat the lamp black/firing cycle til no black marks remain. Reseal the wood with clear polyurethane.

The rings I have are different than most in that the front ring lever tightens in a clock wise direction and the lever on the rear ring tightens counter clockwise. With that in mind, I want both levers pointing inboard at each other when fully tightened in order to minimize exposure to external bumps that might loosen them. Gremlins pull that stunt on me often.

Regards,
wunbe




wunbe

 

[dfletcher]

Sorry for the late response, spent the weekend at the Reno gun show. Thank you for the info, sounds pretty straightforward.