"H" stock

[P-07ShortLee]

How do you tell a stock made for the heavy barrel from a standard?

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[RJW NZ]

The channels where the slightly larger diameter barrel sits will be just slightly larger, obviously, but I have a sneaking suspicion that visually it might look the same to a passing glance.
I could get you a calipered measurement if that would help.

[P-07ShortLee]

That'd be great, no hurry.

It has an "H" and is a "Slaz" stock, can't tell if it's really any different side by side.

[RJW NZ]

Hi Po7,
I opened a rifle and have an answer. Its kind of obvious actually. H barrels weren't bedded, generally speaking they were floated from the knox forward down the length of the fore end. I would guess that most of the time this is achieved by taking a chisel or sanding block and removing the bedding rest areas for the stock narrow barrel, ergo, if your fore end doesn't have all the usual step ups and downs, and looks like a straight channel then its been reamed out to be an H fore end.
For that reason there's no measurements that would be useful because everyone will remove different amounts of wood according to the beer behind the chisel.

Here's my H barrel measurement, its a 1962 barrel, Lithgow I think.
At the muzzle end, about one inch back, right where the barrel steps up from the front sight = .668 inch dia
At the exact middle of the mid band = .694 dia
At the rear most end of the rear sight mount bracket = .745 dia

The conclusion is that if yours is narrower in these areas then it could be a stock barrel set up, because a fat H barrel simply won't go in there.

cheers R

[P-07ShortLee]

Thanks for checking, that is interesting. I guess they modified them on demand?

Think the stock I have is just standard then, it does have an "H", but it must mean something else.

[RJW NZ]

I want to add that perhaps the HT rifles, being a ground up design rather than a modified stock rifle, may have had different bedding system, perhaps with bedding areas up to the mid band and floated from there forward. It would take a post from an HT owner or a reference in out files here at the milsurp library to know this one.
In the end those measurements would be the answer, if yours has the bedding areas but the width matches the H barrel dia, then its a factory made one. I'm pretty sure that H marked for ends mean just what you think, they are for H barrels.