The butt plate is serial numbered to the gun. It's not well-fitted to the stock.
Off you go.
Remember this guy? All that work and it didn't fit anything at the time.
Clearly, this was reason enough to buy the QB.
Note the gap at the top of the stock.
Seems that the original plate didn't fit so well due to the stock not being flat. The wood is rounded over all around the end as well. I was going to re-cut the end with a chop saw, but it's too much trouble to set up for a single cut.
A couple seconds on the sander...
then to the granite plate.
In just a couple minutes the end of the buttstock was truly flat.
A quick eyeball showed that the upper mounting hole on the Morgan plate was good to go, but the lower hole in the stock wasn't in the right spot. Needed to drill a new hole in the stock, but the old hole was uncomfortably close. Elected to fill the stock hole with a small wooden dowel. Didn't have one that fit, so I trimmed one to size on the Taig lathe.
Used a toothpick to get the Gorilla Glue to the bottom of the hole.
Tapped the dowel into place and set it aside for the night to dry.
The next morning, I trimmed the dowel flush with a razor knife.
Mounted the plate to the buttstock with the upper screw and used a transfer punch to spot the new hole location.
Drilled with a 1/8" bit.
And mounted the second wood screw.
Removed the plate and coated the stock side with layout fluid, then found my grandfather's scratch awl.
Scribed around the stock...
leaving a fine line.
Ground the plate to the line on the grinder. Dressed the grinder wheel to keep the aluminum from building up. An old grinding wheel works great as a dressing tool.
It's about 99% fitted. Just needs some edge finishing to remove the scratches.
Aluminum blocks in the vise to protect the aluminum plate. I used a steel block wrapped in successively finer emery cloth to sand out the scratches. The rigid steel sanding block kept the edges sharp.
After taking the sides to 400 grit, I polished it with triple-aught (000) steel wool.
Gave it a quick buff.
Sanded the gun side of the plate one last time to ensure it was flat and leave a clean edge.
Then a final polish with Mother's Mag.
Installed. Not shown: Coated the end grain of the stock with two coats of walnut colored Watco Danish Oil. It's an almost exact match to the stock. This helps seal the stock as well as help camouflage any extremely small gaps between the stock and the plate.
Something I didn't mention--The angles of the stock must carry through whenever fitting a plate or rubber buttpad . I did most of that by angling the platen on the grinder then with a file by hand after it was close.
The fit is pretty good. No gaps at the wood and the lines flow well. I know it's an inexpensive gun, but it doesn't have to look like one.
Pad installed
Gun fits me much better now. Shoulder it and the rear sight comes right to my eye. I suppose I'll have to refinish the stock now. Well, maybe not right now as it's still 24 degrees outside. But soon. Maybe I'll do a full tear down and smooth things out inside next.
1 comment:
I like your note 'it's an inexpensive gun but doesn't have to look like one' :)
Well done, again!
Cheers from the Netherlands,
John
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