What exactly IS a thumbhole stock?

[Cellar Dweller]

I suspect I'm gonna get at least 10 different answers...

What is the legalistic definition of a "thumbhole stock?" A hole for a single normal-sized thumb? What if it's elongated horizontally, but not vertically? Any stock that's not fully enclosed? Are Dragunov- or skeleton-style "thumbholes?"

Or is the real answer that it means different things to different politicians/agencies, always to my detriment? :banghead:

 

[rbernie]

The size of the hole is not important to the definition, as far as I can tell. What seems to matter is that the bottom of the handgrip is joined to the buttstock by a nonremovable piece of material.

 

[Art Eatman]

Sorta like an AR-type handgrip, in a way, but think of some fixed connection between the bottom of the grip and the buttstock itself.

I'm not really sure why folks like them. They'd be okay if you're never in a hurry to reload, I guess. In the field, they're slower than a regular stock, to get your right hand to the bolt handle. You have to pull out and back before reaching up.

Art

 

[Frog48]

Or is the real answer that it means different things to different politicians/agencies, always to my detriment?

As with most things firearms related, unfortunately this answer is the most applicable.

 

[Hoppy590]

As with most things firearms related, unfortunately this answer is the What ever the BATFE decides it is

there ya go, fixed that for ya.

on topic.

thumbholes are pretty much any stock that connects from the bottem of the "grip" throught to the stock, to make one piece. these include traditional thumbholes like the new ithaca deerslayer. to the Mak 90 stock ( more of a pistol grip) to skeleton/draganov stocks.

heck, you could probibly argue a smith and weson model 76 has a "thumbhole stock"

 

[Cellar Dweller]

It's not BATFE I'd have to worry about...but the lovely pending Cook County AWB.

Semi-auto rifles w/detachable mags cannot have a telescoping, folding or thumbhole stock. A 10/22 w/Dragunov appears banned, but a pistol-grip non-folder is definitely okay. Any Mech-Tech CCU seems OK, as long as it's the fixed-stock version.

The Walther G22, Browning Buckmark rifle, PS-90, Beretta Storm, and the Bushmaster M17 bullpup are not specifically named, so with low-cap mags and surgery they would be OK. I'd be loathe to do something irreversible that weakens the stock, so that's out.

If I had the cash + skills, I'd build a folding AND telescoping, pistol-gripped single-shot break-open Rossi in 45Colt. Install a crapload of rails; hang a laser, flashlight, bipod and a forward grip. Gigantic flash hider, bayonet lug and bayonet, 50mm or larger scope AND an ACOG. Entirely flat black, of course. Then I'd mail pictures to the county board.

 

[Evil Monkey]

Here are 2 thumbholes.

 

[AJAX22]

any stock which does not have a portruding pistol grip, where the web of the firing hand is behind the action. (i.e. it has a hole that you put your thumb through)

 

[bluecowdawg]

Here are 2 thumbholes

Evilmonkey you made me laugh so hard my eyes started to hurt