Abstract: A swivel vise which is used primarily for finishing gun stocks and is characterized by a conventional vise assembly mounted on one end of a ball mount shaft for engaging a gun stock and a ball joint assembly also engaging the ball mount shaft intermediate the ends thereof and spaced from the vise assembly, to facilitate manipulation of the ball mount shaft and the vise assembly into a selected position. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, positioning of the vise assembly in a selected attitude is facilitated by operation of a ring tensioning device which receives the ball joint assembly and is mounted on a mount block that can be attached to a work bench. The ball joint assembly includes a split ball carried by a split ring, the ends of which split ring are attached to fixed and movable elements, respectively, of the ring tensioning device, in order to manipulate the vise assembly into the selected position with respect to the mount block for finishing the gun stock.