Nice work. Rather innovative to use the head of a cartridge case as a stock washer.
There's been discussion among the rifle builders (muzzle loaders) as to what they really are. Historically in Europe not one person made the gun. Blacksmiths made the part. Whitesmiths filed them into shape. Other people made accoutrements. Barrel makers made barrels. Gunstockers assembled everything onto a stock. Most gunsmiths didn't make locks (but Wallace Gusler proved that it could be done) or barrels (ditto w/Gusler) but bought stuff to assemble. If you read Ned Roberts or Walter Cline's books, we know that many backwoods smiths did hammer out their own barrel and rifle them.
Like they teach lawyers, everything is arguing definition or interpreting the meaning. Recently a lot of kids dropped out of Trinidad College Gunsmithing School b/c it's unlike all the stuff they've seen on the television. It's more than slapping together an AR. If you played with an Erector Set, Lego, you can build an AR. No one expects to be turning down barrels or reaming them out to rebore them. No one expects the tedious work involved in making a wood stock or all the bench metal work to make parts or tools but those are skills that must be mastered.
If you would like to learn the skills so aptly shown by Larry (ArmoredMan's friend), sign up for the NMLRA Summer Gunbuilder's Workshop. You study under the masters which is how I met Wallace Gusler, Gary Brumfield (dec.), Mark Silver, Jim Chambers, Hershel/Frank/John/Lally House, Jack Brooks, Ron Ehlert (dec.), Miller, etc. Among the "students" are many whom can be called masters too. One guy is a surgeon and he built a girandoni. Conner Prairie Museum in Fishers, Indiana also offers workshops in October. Besides the stocking of a rifle, you'll also learn how to do relief carving, wire inlay, engraving. If you want to do the latter, start studying rococo art and drawing them. Like Wallace said, if you can't draw, you can't carve (you have to be able to draw what you carve, wire inlay or engrave).
