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The Wheeler F-Open (WFO) Stock

tvaught

Gold $$ Contributor
@Alex Wheeler has brought forward a new stock worthy of consideration for the F-Open shooter. The partnership he's formed with @Jason Avila , brings a great stock, at great value, and minimal wait times. I'm hesitant to put that last part in there, as I could see him getting busy rather quickly.

My agenda here is to highlight a product that I think is backed by great design, manufacturing process, materials, and great people.

What makes a great F-Open stock? That depends of course on the individual, and what they're wanting from it. For me, I favor a pretty scorecard, and function over form. It needs to be able to live in a gun bag, getting dragged in and out of the truck for test/practice sessions, travel from hot humid to cold dry and all that in between. My opinion is that stocks that are too stiff and rigid, can be difficult to tune; conversely stocks that are too floppy, can be difficult to be consistent with. The stock I think is an often-overlooked part of our F-Open systems in terms of forgiveness, precision, and consistency. How the F-Open rifle's weight is distributed between the front rest and rear bag, is large component to how well a F-Open rifle tracks, and how well it handles "torque". Additionally, the height of the bore is another design dimension that can give a rifle more forgiving bag manners, especially with mag bolt faces and the twist rates required for heavier for caliber bullets and higher MVs. This design seems to be right in a sweet spot in regards to all of the above.

The manufacturing process @Jason Avila uses to produces these ensures these stocks are straight, uniform/consistent from stock to stock.

My experience testing this one, jumped out at me right away as this gun has been very easy to tune right away starting from the first few rounds down the barrel.

Hopefully @Alex Wheeler will be along shortly to detail more of the specifics and history behind it's design. And @Jason Avila can provide more detail about manufacturing and availability.

Here's some pictures. The stock is unfinished, under the premise this was testing a new stock design. It'll get all cleared up once I burn the barrel up, and am forced to take it apart.

Gun weighs 20lbs 14.7 ozs as you see it in the pictures, so should have plenty of headroom for a Majesta or raingear or mirage shields and not make you nervous on the 10kg/22lb rifle weight inspections.

This is now my favorite gun to shoot.

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Although I haven't shoot one. I have seen Jason's stocks first hand and they are nice. What length barrel dd you need to run to get it to balance? Also, what ear spacing do you need on the rear bag?
 
I had the privilege of shooting this rifle the other day while practicing! My first impression was how comfortable it was to get behind, hold and shoot. But I think the most notable thing I took away from it was how well it tracked and returned to battery. The stock handled the torque well and did not jump at all. If you have ever shot an older Bruno’s style McMillan BR stock it sits in the bags close to that.

Overall very comfortable and smooth shooting. My only negative is that now you are going to force me into spending more money on yet another rifle Tim lol.

Thanks for the opportunity to get behind this rifle, it was a joy to shoot.
 
The grip and butt stock is very close to the LRB stock I use for BR. Forward of that it goes back to an early 3" BR stock I used to use. Im back to that but its a 4". However in F open we can do some things not legal in BR and vise versa. So I followed the bottom contour on top to increase bag contact which is pretty standard. This is a long stock, it sits low, and its slender. Its my preference in a stock. It may not be yours. Years ago I had something close to this but did not really follow through with it to sell them. I have given the design to Jason, you can get them from him or myself if Im building the rifle.
 
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The grip and butt stock is very close to the LRB stock I use for BR. Forward of that it goes back to an early 3" BR stock I used to use. Im back to that but its a 4". However in F open we can do some things not legal in BR and vise versa. So I followed the bottom contour on top to increase bag contact which is pretty standard. This is a long stock, it sits low, and its slender. Its my preference in a stock. It may not be yours. Years ago I had something close to this but did not really follow through with it to sell them. I have given the design to Jason, you can get them from him or myself if Im building the rifle.
Alex is your design scooped out on sides and underneath? Not the front bag rider, but further back in the mid section.
I finished a @Jason Avila FTR stock a few weeks ago that was cut like that, with more of a PRT butt and grip.
I've had the opportunity to finish a dozen or more of Jason's stocks in all different configurations and I must say, they finish out beautifully.
 
Tim let me shoot the rifle a few days ago at bayou. I was quiet impressed with the low center of gravity for a non-rail setup. It tracked really well in the bags as it always went back to point of aim when I pushed the gun back to the front stop. The material is lighter so it gives you the options of running different barrel contours and adding weight in the areas that best fits your style of shooting. Overall it's a really good design that I believe is going to do really well in f-class.
 
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I also had the opportunity to get behind this new setup that Timmy has running. My memory of this was most notably the tracking. Load the next round and my crosshairs were back into the prior position and ready for the next round. Very impressive to settle behind a new rifle that just seemed to easily repeat without much effort. I’m thinking Jason and Alex have a winner here. I watched and was a part of 3 different peeps behind this rig and I don’t recall anything but 10’s and X’s. And Alex has that action dialed in. Smooth and slickerY… Nicely done folks! Timmy thank you for sharing this beauty loaded up for test drives! She’s a keeper
 
I have two of Jason's stocks and they are both first class. He is very quick to respond to texts/calls and he does an amazing job with attention to detail. He just finished the same color stock for me like Tim's above. Great balance and it tracks great. Jason can inlet and finish the stock with high automotive gloss if you want him to.
 
Thanks everyone. I feel like I won a Grammy. I’ve been working hard tying to provide high quality stocks. I’ve been lucky enough to catch the attention of some pretty good people that have helped me along the way.
Alex is correct. The WFO is selling for $900, inletting on popular actions is $150. If anyone has any questions feel free to message me here or give me a call.

Website is in the works!

Jason Avila 559-303-4975
 

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