doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Fitting Stock to Action - 100% contact ?

Gentlemen,

about 9 years ago I bought my wife as a pre-wedding wedding present a Winchester 101 20 bore (well the honeymoon was spent shooting in Scotland!!!). This stock was cut down to fit her.

I managed to find an almost new, full length stock to enable me to shoot the gun on the odd occasion. I am therefore fitting this stock to the 101, this is the question...

Contact is made between the stock and action in all the right places - i.e. top and bottom horns and the recoil surface of the tang piece. There is also the appropriate gap between the rounded point of the top tang and the stock.

However, there is only about 60% contact between the tang piece (between the top and bottom tangs) and the stock when the joint is smoked - is this sufficient? A friendly gunsmith said that 100% contact of these surfaces is virtually impossible to achieve unless glassbed was used, and that the stock would probably set back slightly over time so that the contact increased - any comments or advice would be gratefully received.

Jonty

Jonty,
I fitted a 101 stock a couple years ago. If memory serves, you're talking about the verticle recoil lug surface between the tangs at the rear, that the drawbolt goes thru? If so, I would highly recommend that this area be glassbedded (I use Devcon Aluminum) and if it's glassbedded, grind out at least 1/16" to allow for the bedding material. The recoil lug surface requires as much contact as possible. Glassbedding assures that.

If you glassbed it, find a piece of allthread (I think it was 6mm), for substituting the drawbolt during the bedding, and put it in the frame and wrap at least a couple inches near the reciever with a thin layer of tape and make sure to use mold release on everything.

Use Brownells thick epoxy and bed it. I don't like the stuff but it stays in place without running and if you use the least possible you won't have much clean up. Because it doesn't run I use a razor to cut off an excess that is forced out of the joint before it sets up.
bill

Good advice here. Just bed it and be done with it.