“Wood” AR-15 Build – Part 2

USA -(Ammoland.com)- This is part two of a series of articles. If you missed part one, read it here.

At this point in the build, the left and right panels of rosewood were roughly shaped and installed on the rifle. So, we turned our attention to the shaping the finger piece.

The Executive Ordnance grip frame we are using as the foundation of the grip has a small slot for the finger piece to sit in as well as two screw holes to secure it.

This slot will protect the edges of the wood but also means that in addition to shaping the finger piece to feel comfortable and secure in the hand, we had to make it fit in the aluminum slot.

We first cut the wood to the desired height (from the aluminum frame when installed) and then into a rectangle with the same dimensions as the slot. Then we alternated sanding the sides and the corners until the square corners were rounded like those of the frame’s slot and the piece snapped into place. Then we marked and drilled the screw holes followed by the countersinks.

Drilling the holes in the finger piece was significantly more difficult than the grip panels because of how little material we were working with. There is about ¼ inch of wood between the countersinks and the edge of the finger piece so we took our time drilling the holes. After a little bit of massaging with a Dremel, we were relieved to see that both the screw holes and countersinks were aligned correctly.

It was then back to the Dremel to shape the finger contours into the piece.

With the three wood parts of the grip were now in their final shape, we started on one of the more unique pieces of the build: the wood trigger guard.

We hadn’t seen this done before and weren’t sure if the wood would be strong enough, but once the first cuts were made we could feel that the wood was plenty strong. The contours of the trigger guard are relatively simply so most of the shaping was done with sanders and a little Dremel finishing.

To see more pictures and learn more about each step of the build check out the full story on Black Wood USA’s Blog or their Wood AR-15 Grip Page. Or just stay tuned to AmmoLand for the next installment of the build story.

Page Links:

• http://www.blackwoodusa.com/wood-grips-ar-15
• http://www.blackwoodusa.com/single-post/2016/12/22/Wood-AR-15-Trigger-Guard-Day-Four

About Black Wood USA:

BlackWoodUSA.com was started as a platform to tell the story of building the wood furniture for our AR-15 project that began life with Clark Armory. Black Wood USA’s mission is to complete the Wood AR-15 Build, show how the furniture is made and explore the possibility of producing the components for sale.

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