Hot-rodding my Tactical Stock 3: Barrel Vents

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I have always liked barrel vents on a precision rifle – they facilitate the even cooling of the barrel plus they just look really cool. In this installment of my 5 part series, I describe how I milled barrel vents into my precision tactical stock.

The stocks I have seen with vents all have three horizontal slots placed fairly close together. I decided to make ¼ slots that were 1 ½ inches long and separated by ½ inch. The stock I have been using is a Boyds Tacticool stock for Savage Model 11. It started life with a blind magazine because, up until recently, that is all that was available for Savage in aftermarket stocks. The forend of the Tacticool stock is hollowed out (Figure 2) and I wanted my slots to mill through to the trough in the forend. The trough also allowed me a lot of flexibility on how high to place my horizontal vents and I decided to locate the centerline of the slots ½ inch below the top of the barrel channel. Here is a picture of my jig: More explanation follows.

 

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I created a drawing to describe the pattern that I would use to follow in making the cuts. The pattern turned into a full-on jig complete with clamps to hold the forend in place while machining the slots. I used a Bosch Colt palm router with a ½ inch bushing around a ¼ in carbide straight bit. (Because of the difference in these two diamters, it is important to note that the shapes in the pattern are larger than the resulting cuts in the work piece.) I drew out the full size plans on a piece of Baltic birch plywood and drilled ½ inch pilot holes at the edges of the three slots. I used my router table to connect the pilot holes using a ¼ straight bit. I milled a piece of 4x4 to be fastened to the backside of the pattern so that the when the forend was clamped in the jig, the top of the barrel channel would register ½ inch above the centerline of the pattern slots. Here is a picture of the backside of the jig. More explanation follows.

 

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I clamped everything in place with 6 inch clamps from Harbor Freight. The front edge of the stocks was flush with the right end of the pattern. One clamp went over the front edge of the stock. The other actually went through the magazine well to secure the inboard end of the pattern.

 

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Then I fired up the palm router. It took me about a dozen cuts to break through to the trough in the forend. The pattern was designed to be symmetric. After machining one side of the stock I turned the barrel over and trued up the front edge of the stock with the left end of the pattern. I reset the clamps and repeated the same cuts. Presto - barrel vents!

Here are pics of the finished product. I am pleased with the results. I spent a great deal of time to make an accurate pattern and the precision has paid off. Having barrel vents is almost as much fun as putting glasspacks on your 57 Chevy! I think I am going to do this to several other stocks in my collection.