American Handgunner July/August 1982

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fW IlH UHlf By Philip C. Briggs The booming popularity of the handgun silhouette sport has created an ever-expanding market for products and firearms for which there previously had been only a limited demand, or which hadn't even existed. The list is long, but take the Remington XP-lOO for example; or more to the point, its stock. As the number of custom XP-lOO's chambered for ever bigger cartridges grew exponentially, the demand for stocks that would provide more shooter comfort and better acCuracy expanded accordingly. New materials and construction techniques were employed to inexpensively produce stocks that closely fit the complex shapes of the shooter's hand to better distribute recoil forces, and hence reduce felt recoil. These same materials also provided the added benefits of being more stable than wood, while providing equal or better accuracy with less weight. Fiberglass was the first option tried, often by the same firms that had been building fiberglass rifle stocks for benchrest, varmint or silhouette rifles. The first stocks were lighter than wood, although not always by much. Some I've seen weren't that much more comfortable to shoot than Remington's stock; reshaping them to fit the hand by filling adds weight, and removes strength. There's a second generation of replacement stocks coming out now made of new materials, with new designs to solve old problems. One, a new stock from H-S Precision (P.O. Box 512, Prescott, AZ 86302), uses a material new to pistol stock manufacturers. The stock is injection molded of polyurethane foam that is reinforced with chopped fiberglass fibers. Called "Fiberthane," the foam mix is one of a T he forward grip pistol on our . cover,_ a radical new departure in stlhouette pistols, is designed to be shot prone, and to effectively use that most efficient of iron sights, the peep. The unusual fiberglass stock was designed and built by stockmaker Gale McMillian (Box DY 72, Cave Creek Stage, Phoenix, AZ 85020). The finish, twelve coats of hand rubbed lacquer, starts with black pearl and is overlaid with several layers of tinted iridescent and clear lacquers. It w.as applied by Jim Gebhart (8045 N. 12th Street, Phoenix, AZ 85020). Metal work was done by Dan Carey (112 Condor Circle, Darlington, South Carolina 29532), who developed the design for the farforward trigger. The E.R. Shaw barrel (Thoms Run Road, Bridgeville, PA 15017) is chambered in 7X47mm. The pistol shoots as good as it looks. It swept Sara, Briggs' wife, into triple A and it appears that her first 40 is not far off. 42 AM~f'1ICAN HANDGUNNER· JULY/AUGUST <strong>1982</strong>
family ofstructural foams commonly used to mold large, complex items, such as furniture or fake wood trim.The foam is light, but a lot denser than the foams that most of us' are used to seeing; cut ~ stock apart and you'll find the foam will dent slightly with a fingernail. The foam is the same density throughout, except for a hard, smooth skin that forms against the mold. This outside surface comes out nearly flawless, requiring only minor filling of an occasional gas bubble before painting. The primary advantage of the foam stock is light weight. The stock I've been testing, bedded, with trigger guard llnd paint, weighs II ounces,. the same as a factory nylon original. H-SP has been producing rifle stocks made wit!:). this material for about three years, and the pistol stock for about two. Complex shapes are easily formed with this process, and they've taken advantage of that property to incorporate finger grooves and a thumbrest on the pistol stock~ The fo~m is easily shaped with woodworking tools, so that carving clearance for a thumb knuckle takes but a few minutes with a rasp, and there's no need to worry about weakening the stock by cutting through the shell. Refinishmg the carved spot is easily done with epoxy or lacquer putty. Putty can also be used to add material where needed to get that custom fit necessary to comfO,rtably shoot the a,rmwrenchers. Duratite wood dough (by DAP Inc.) works well; it's light, ~nd will stick to the ~tock, (not your hand) while you mold the mess to fit. . . The ultimate strength of the foam stock is less than that ofa wood or fiberglass version. You could break it ifyou used it for a hammer, and I expect· you wouldn't have to strain'too hard to bust it in half with your bare hands. Still, it wasn't designed for that sort of abuse, but rather for the forces exerted by the 'recoiling action and the resisting hand. There's a piece of aluminum tubing in the grip for reinforcement, ap.d recent stocks incorporate a strip of fiberglass cloth around the recoil lug! trigger hole. I've heard of two early stocks that were broken in that area, the thinnest and hence weakest portion ofany stock. One was broken in the struggle to remove the action from the bedding compound; the other, on a friend's 7mm-08, failed while we were Master craftsmen develop practical, exotic designs for XP-l00 chronographing some loads. ~owever, as the crack propagated from the top of the stock down I suspect it was damaged by prying the rear of the action out of the compound first, which forces the barrel down on the forend. Craftsman Tom Houston I took that stock back to H-SP owner Tom Houghton, and although his company probably 'wasn't responsible, he replaced it. That's nice, but more importantly for the rest of us, Tom decided on the spot to add some glass cloth to that area to eliminate the problem. I had my stock bedded to my 8mm IHMSA pistol by H-SP. They do nice work. I'm prone to clean out the excess bedding with a Dremel Moto-Tool and a chisel, but they set the stock up in a milling machine and milled out the excess material. Even though most customers wouldn't know the difference, Tom feels it's the best way to do it, and I guess that's what "Precision" means. I shot the stock for six months or so and my scores went up immediately, starting with a 59X60 in our state shoot. After about 500 rounds or so, neither the stock nor the bedding show any sign of distress, but the tail of the action began to float off of the bedding. I'm inclined to snug the action in extra firm, and as I had only an half-inch or so of the barrel bedded, I expect that with this limited support I've over-stressed the foam in this area. Either that, or it's warped due to our hot summers. You can't pillar-bed an XP because of the trigger bar, so I recommend that the bedding extend'down the ~arrel a couple of inches, and that the inletting be opened up, so that a lot of compound can be placed around the recoil lug to spread the clamping force over a larger area. That, and drilling and tapping the action for a rear action screw, should eliminate the problem of an over-zealous wrench or the relentless sun. More recently, Tom has added a new XP stock (FRP-IOOO, left or right hand available) to his line that eliminates the problems of total bedding, and has the added benefits of a more secure anchoring of the action to the stock and a better fit ofgrip to hand. The stock is molded around a precisionmachined aluminum V-bedding block. The block is drilled through for the XPs large front action screw, and tapped for insertion ofthe small rear action screw. New, high-strength hex-head capscrew replacements are provided for both action screws, as are an appropriately sized pair of hex wrenches. The stock is a one-size-fits-all type. Unbolt your 7mmBR from the plastic-fantastic brown-dirt original stock and bolt it into the new H-SP version and it's ready to shoot. That's it, and there's no reason why you can't swap it around among your other XP pistols-like your .221 stocker, or the .223 varmint getter, or the .308 deer slayer. This may well be the last XP stock you'll buy! Tom obviously had some input from top silhouette shooters on the stock's shape. The grip fits the hand well and offers good control of the pistol with heavily recoiling cartridges. These shooters must have been Creedmoor fans, as the left side ofthe butt (right-hand version) is cut away to allow your wrist and fingers to solidly contact your thigh and the forearm is chamfered to This .Binkley stock is eye-pleasing, has benchrest accuracy and eternal stability. AMERICAN HANDGUNNER . JULY/AUGUST <strong>1982</strong> 43
Page 1 and 2: o II 73595 67522
Page 3 and 4: YOU'LL SEE OUR NEW ALUMINUM CASE 38
Page 5 and 6: Bianchi'sontheWagonl The #1 Selling
Page 7 and 8: firstwe bro\J&btYQ11the "~IIowJacke
Page 10 and 11: The PERFECT TENI~--- coprAUC MASSAD
Page 12 and 13: 511UErAS PHILIP C. BRIGGS THE .357
Page 14 and 15: Buy OneID81IBOOk, Get One Free! . B
Page 16 and 17: SIGHrSEn'INGS LU.CY c:HAMBLiss •
Page 18 and 19: Customize your own gun with the fam
Page 21 and 22: COP TALK Continuedfrom page 10 . go
Page 23 and 24: , To provide the shooter with the s
Page 25 and 26: either: I'm only 5'8", and about 18
Page 27 and 28: PISTOLSMITHING AT IT'S FINEST SEND
Page 30 and 31: Collected by Jon Winokur Speed Relo
Page 32 and 33: 1J1reba ~uu ~l1l1P CUSTOMCOMPETITIO
Page 34 and 35: Patridge sights on these revolvers
Page 37 and 38: Cana parts-built.45 cOlDpete ~itha
Page 39 and 40: UIIIDNIEI HAIDGUIIEI HANIIDNIER Cus
Page 41: Screwdriver points to trigger block
Page 45 and 46: the 7X47mm wildcat we used in our t
Page 47: are also shooting highly specialize
Page 51 and 52: a full 120 rounds with never a bobb
Page 53 and 54: gotta hold about five, six inches a
Page 55 and 56: Marvine Exline, a triple "A" class
Page 57 and 58: ANDGUNS TAKES SKILL load. Under str
Page 59 and 60: I~V STONE PRODUCES mAIIN-Wlnnlnli .
Page 61 and 62: ing it about 90 degrees to port. Th
Page 63 and 64: BAR-STO Continued from page 59 help
Page 65 and 66: SINGLE-SHOT PISTOL DEVELOpMENT: TIC
Page 67 and 68: create groups somewhat larger than
Page 69 and 70: then reach- for the spare clip. IPS
Page 71 and 72: essential with the heavy S&W Target
Page 73 and 74: L-FRAME Continuedfrom page35 IS YOU
Page 75 and 76: I its apparent or effective wall th
Page 77 and 78: Send $1.00 lor .ew BrochurBrelundab
Page 79 and 80: FLUORESCENT COlORS! BULLSHOOTERS·'
Page 81 and 82: SPEAKOUT Contin1!edfrom p~ge25 both
Page 83 and 84: Ruger Single Action Kit Company wil
Page 85 and 86: see which of the "new" directors sp
Page 87 and 88: ... .~. • • • STOP MlSSlNG---
Page 89 and 90: NEW MILITARY PISTOL-BY THE NUMBERS
Page 91 and 92: (28) Magazine Disconnector: Pistol
Page 93 and 94:
MILITARY SPECIFICATIONS hard surfac
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American Handgunner July/August 1982

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