doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Thick wrist fix?

As far as I recall the standard wrist for English guns is 4 1/8 inches. At least, all my English guns are, including a petite 20 gauge hammer Manton.

All the best

Skeeterbd

Just thought I would measure the wrists on my poor mans Hollands each is 12 bore one English straight hand stock the other semi pistol grip and of course no through bolt. There is one eighth of an inch difference the semi pistol grip is the larger of the two

One issue with wrist thickness on a through bolt gun that we haven't addressed is cast. I believe they can have some cast, but if they do, wouldn't the wrist have to be thicker?? I get 4 5/8" on my Weatherby Athena d'Italia, which is a through bolt gun with some cast.

The top and bottom tangs with through bolts are usually wider and require more wood to be left around them.Restocking a 410 315 Stevens right now and for that reason cannot make wrist as slim as i like. Bobby

Walt, thanks for taking the time to measure and for the pic. I don't consider 4 5/8" to be overly thick or thin,'bout average?
I measured both of my guns for comparison, RBL 16 is 4 7/8", Ithaca/SKB 20 is 4 3/4". Again, this isn't a problem for me. Some with smaller hands would be bothered by it more I would think. This brings out another question. At what point is the grip too small? I would think that this could be much like golf clubs or tennis rackets, very much an individual preference. If you order a gun to your specs is this normally part of the stock dimensions?

My reason for asking this is that I have used the SKB as a test bed over the years as I have gained experience and I hope a little knowledge. The first SxS I owned didn't fit at all which put me on the road to find out why. Read and studied and found out about cast, LOP, pitch etc. I then carved a stock for my second SxS, the SKB. The gun fits well and I have gotten every bit and more out of the gun. At some point soon I would like to have a gun built to my specs. It most likely will be Spanish to fit my budget. I am gathering all the input I can in an effort to get this right, once.

Thanks to all of you and please keep it coming!

Chief

I'm not sure I'd wish to "fix" a thick wrist on a gun I intended to use much. If the manufacturer thought the wrist spec was necessary it most likely was. Thin wristed stocks break a lot...Geo

George, maybe so, maybe no. Just as likely it was designed for the average adult hand. Think about how well a 14" LOP works out for most people. Then again that same 14" LOP isn't the optimum for most. Same with cast and DOC/DOH that have established at none, 1 1/2" and 2 1/2" respectively for most production guns. I don't know their motivation, just a guess.

Chief

Chief, I can't argue with what you've said about gun specs being influenced mostly by what maker's think the "average" user would want. 100 years ago a 14" LOP fit most folks, now it does not.

Stocks can be bent to fit and LOP extended without risking the integrity of the stock. But trimming down a wrist section might cause a bad break in a tough place to fix. Most of the 'thick' wristed guns I've had have been built with through-stock bolts. The loss of wood caused by the hole for the bolt must be compensated for somehow...Geo

My 12 ga. Win. M-23 was made for sale in Europe. It has 1/4" of cast, and the straight wrist is exaclty 4-1/4" circumference. So, a through-bolt doesn't necessarily mean a fat wrist. This is much thinner than the wrist of the standard 20 ga. M-23 I once had.

Winchester made another European M-23 that was more like the standard U.S. gun. Mine has different "engraving", splinter forend with ebony forend tip, solid swamped rib, 14-3/4" LOP over a checkered rosewood buttplate. Weighed 6 lbs. 10 oz. before I replaced the buttplate with the pad.

Larry, I bought this gun not long before your article on 23s.

Jay

George, I would likely reinforce the through bolt hole with a graphite tube. This would come from pieces of an 8 Wt fly rod that exploded in the heat of the moment, (very dramatic!). I kept a few of the pieces, they looked handy and for the memory. Likely would epoxy in the tube then glass in a bolt of the same diameter as the draw bolt using a release agent. Remove the bolt and should give a light, tight job.

Jay, that's a nice 23! At 6-10 lighter than a lot of the W23 20's.

Chief