doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com parker g grade

I saw g grade parker with #2 grade frame,person that owns it wants to swap wood from 1 1/2frame is that feasible or not?
thanks
tom

Even if they were on the same frame size the chances of a well fitting stock are extremely slim. They were all hand fitted and may come close but rarely ever close enough.

Roll the dice and get the glass bedding out.

bill

As others have suggested, variances in manufacturing means variances in fit from one stock to another. So it is a crap shoot. But... To answer your question, yes, when it comes to stocks the 1-1/2 and 2 frames are interchangeable dimensionally.

I tend to disagree. The swap may work between a Parker #2 frame and a #1 1/2 frame, but if your friend found good wood from another #2 frame Parker G grade, chances are it would fit very well. This is because most of the makers of vintage U.S. doubles were using machine made stocks. It is common to see machining marks in the inletting. I have to say I do not know if there are dimensional differences between #2 and #1 1/2 frames of Parkers.

I learned this right here several years ago when I bought a Lefever DS-E action and forearm at a gun show. A few weeks later, at another gun show about 60 miles away, I found a very nice Lefever buttstock for $15.00. I took it home and tried it on a small XX frame 16 ga. G Grade action, and it fit perfectly, well within normal tolerances for factory inletting. Then I looked at the serial number in the wood, and it seemed very familiar. I got the 12 ga. DS-E action that I bought a few weeks earlier and found it had the same serial number. These guns were a small frame 16 and a standard frame 12, and the serial numbers were years apart, but the fit of the buttstock was identical.

I asked the question here in this forum about machining marks in inletting and whether U.S. shotgun makers used duplicators, and several guys provided information and even photos of old multi-head stock duplicators. Finishing and checkering were done by hand. Duplicators are not created equal. Some provide a drop in fit while others will require some hand fitting. Mass production and the concept of interchangeable parts was already well under way in the U.S. gun industry. There was still a lot of expensive hand labor involved, but it was largely eliminated where possible.

Keith,
It sounds like you have have little experience in fitting Parker stocks. Believe me, there is a lot of variation from gun to gun even within the same frame size. Differences in the hand filing of the frames and also the various drops have a large effect on stocks fitting different frames. The tangs on the frames were bent by the stock fitters when setting the drops for the stocks.
And like i stated, when it comes to stocks, 2 and 1-1/2 frames are interchangeable from a dimensional standpoint. The differences between the two frames sizes is in the height of the breech balls. Nothing to do with the widths or heights at the stock head I answered the OPs question accurately.

And we are talking about Parkers here, not Lefevers.

Parker stocks were put through a profiling lathe. The blank was roughed out on a band saw and then the profile of the stock from the wrist back was roughly turned. Yhe stock head was left In block form. The top and bottom inletting was roughly cut. The inletting was finished by hand and the cheek panels and wrist were shaped all by hand as well.

I personally own a Parker factory turned and unfitted stock, and have seen a number of others. So I can attest to this.

Sure, as long as wood-to-metal fit is no big deal for you and you don't care what it looks like.
JR