Altamaha,

I'm envious of your stock duplicating machine and would love to have one for my shop. I'm a stock hobbyist who's always envisioned being a stocker for one of the English gunmaking houses in London!
My hobby is focused on English oil finishes, stripping/refinishing, recheckering, extensions, pads, etc.... I would love to be able to take a beautiful blank and fit it to a gun such that the gun's furniture appears to grow seemlessly out of the wood.

You'd be surprised at how long you can go in length of pull and still shoot very well. Most people adapt themselves to stocks that are much too short. Once one learns to shoot with a longer stock, they will never go back to an ill-fitting one. Also, few people consider shooting position when getting fitted for a rifle stock. Shooting prone, kneeling, or sitting will require an additional inch or maybe two because your head will naturally be positioned farther forward on the comb.

The length of pull that I mentioned above for rifles is for open sights. For a scoped rifle where I have to accomodate eye relief of the optics, I would probably take a 1/2" off of that. I shoot with a traditional heads-up style and my DAC and DAH reflect that.

I'm not really a "large" build at all; more swimmer like even though football was my chosen sport.