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#478435 04/22/17 08:44 AM
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Tom C Offline OP
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I picked up a nice 16 gauge german gun that I need to reshape the stock to fit me. I will be doing the work myself. In order to fit me, I need to take the comb and heal down a little which should not be a problem. I am also considering removing the cheek pad which concerns me. ( I think cheek pads are butt ugly:) I am not sure what the best method of removing this is. Rasping file? Belt sander?

I addition, I need to lengthen the stock about 3/4" so I am planning on removing the butt plate and installing a period appropriate (1925) butt pad. The stock butt and the butt plate are curved and I do not want to cut it flat. Are there butt pads that will reshape to conform to the stock butt. I would like the pad to be black and somewhat soft unlike the red Silvers pads which to me are like concrete.


Tom C

�There are some who can live without wild things and some who cannot.�
Aldo Leopold
Tom C #478436 04/22/17 09:02 AM
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You said you would be installing a period correct pad...I'm not sure a soft black pad was available in 1925. There are soft red, orange, brown and black pads available that would be appropriate....NECG offers some nice pads that when fitted up right look good and age/vintage appropriate. You can get some pad base plates to bend without cracking them (usually by warming them up and slowly bending), it depends how much curve you are dealing with though.
A rasp would be a good place to start when it comes to removing the cheek piece.

Tom C #478437 04/22/17 09:33 AM
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look on places like gunbroker at guns that have been altered by previous owners for more ideas.....no rush on looking as the pages are always full of them as it is hard to sell at any price....

BTW..can I ask??...are you a TRAP shooter????....the ones I have know have never owned a gun that didn't need to be altered........


gunut
Tom C #478438 04/22/17 09:44 AM
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You can grind any pad to match the curve of the buttstock but if unskilled you may need several pads to get the hang of it through trial and error.

It took me two attempts at grinding to match the curve of my 24 gauge's butt.

When looking at adding a pad you need to consider how it will effect the handling in terms of balance. A pachmayr or silvers pad are both very heavy and will add weight to the end of your gun and can easily make it butt heavy. You may have to hollow out the butt some.

Another course of action I have pursued is to use Italian made Cervellati microcell pads which are roughly 1/3 the weight of the same thickness rubber pad. They come in both black (available in the USA from Hastings) and brown (though for the brown you need to find someone in Europe who will ship it to you)

Another challenge with the Cervellati pads is they require a finer grit sanding belt than the normal rubber pads which led me to do it myself as the local guy in Kansas City was not interested in William Tell Hunting Club, Moosehead Lake, Maine taking the job.


Michael Dittamo
Topeka, KS
Tom C #478440 04/22/17 09:54 AM
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A block plane, or spoke shave can also be useful for cheek piece removal. Since you will have to refinish the stock anyway mounting the pad and grinding it while fixed to the stock. That will maintain the curve of the butt.

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Originally Posted By: old colonel
You can grind any pad to match the curve of the buttstock but if unskilled you may need several pads to get the hang of it through trial and error.

It took me two attempts at grinding to match the curve of my 24 gauge's butt.

When looking at adding a pad you need to consider how it will effect the handling in terms of balance. A pachmayr or silvers pad are both very heavy and will add weight to the end of your gun and can easily make it butt heavy. You may have to hollow out the butt some.

Another course of action I have pursued is to use Italian made Cervellati microcell pads which are roughly 1/3 the weight of the same thickness rubber pad. They come in both black (available in the USA from Hastings) and brown (though for the brown you need to find someone in Europe who will ship it to you)

Another challenge with the Cervellati pads is they require a finer grit sanding belt than the normal rubber pads which led me to do it myself as the local guy in Kansas City was not interested in William Tell Hunting Club, Moosehead Lake, Maine taking the job.



I'm not sure he's talking about grinding the pad itself to have a "curve". What I got out of it was he didn't want to cut the stock flat to mount the pad. In that case, the baseplate of the pad would have to be bent to match the curvature of the uncut stock. When the baseplate has to be manipulated to match an exiting curve, you're limited in what baseplates or pads can be bent like that. In fact...it's somewhat normal to break 1 or two before finding one that bends the way you want it.

Tom C #478450 04/22/17 10:51 AM
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rather than butchering the original stock, why not send the gun off to a stocker, who can fit wood blanks to the receiver and forend iron, so you can then shape them to your needs...

Last edited by ed good; 04/22/17 10:52 AM.

keep it simple and keep it safe...
Tom C #478452 04/22/17 11:30 AM
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ed
Probably because that would be way to expensive, & he feels like he can do a good job himself .
Go for it Tom, just take your time & be carefull of digging in and taking a too deep slab off that cheek piece.
Could you make a mock up of the curve you need for the pad, & then
heat (boil) n bend the pad a little & repeat until you get it right?
I'd shoot the gun with the cheeck piece on just to see if it needed to be taken off...I've never had a cheek piece gun,so have no idea how they feel
good luck...keep us posted mate
cheers
franc

Tom C #478455 04/22/17 11:50 AM
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Do be aware that the top of the comb area on stocks with a cheek peice can be very narrow which might not be comfortable to shoot after the cheek peice is removed. Pick out a stock you like and make a card board profile cutout to go over it and then try it over this gun. If you see daylight under it with the cheek peice still on it, after altering it to go over the cheekpeice then you might have a problem. You might be ok if you need to lower the comb height. Measure twice then cut once.

Tom C #478456 04/22/17 12:01 PM
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Lefusil - That's correct. I want to get the base of the pad to fit the concave shape of the stock. I would like to find a butt pad that is somewhat flexible with or without heat. Once I get the pad shape like the stock I will grind down the pad. I have successfully done this a number of times and recently did my first leather covered pad on a low end Boswell. I have the jig for this.

Gunut - I used to shoot trap but now spend my time on clays and 5-stand. I learned the hard way that modern stocks do not fit me. I had terrible cheek slap to the point it would bruise, swell and sometimes bleed. Not fun. I'm tall and slender and found guns with a lot of drop at comb and heal really helped. That's why I always loved shooting my fathers Sterlingworth and that's how I got back into shooting older SxS guns with more drop.

Ed - this is a hobby for me and I do not butcher stocks. Why pay a gunsmith when you enjoy doing it and are fairly good at doing it. I'm not a professional but they look pretty good and I learn more every time I do one. Those things I don't feel comfortable doing like checkering and barrel work I send out, although my rust blueing is pretty good.


Tom C

�There are some who can live without wild things and some who cannot.�
Aldo Leopold
Tom C #478459 04/22/17 12:38 PM
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I would be careful taking the cheek piece completely off the stock. Check your sight picture down the rib of the barrel and be sure you aren't about to give yourself a big helping of "cast off" by doing so, and ruining your sight picture to the point that you are no longer aligned to the center of the barrel when you mount the gun. Typically, removing that thickness of wood will move your cheek over perhaps too far to still align with your target.

Tom C #478468 04/22/17 01:45 PM
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Yes, be very careful with the cheek piece. Many stocks that have them have a bit of cast in the actual comb area. And removing them may dramatically alter your sight line. Also, some may "dish" in some on each side of the cheek piece which will not allow you the ability to get a true surface on the side of the stock once removed.

In regards to a curved butt. Nearly any hard plastic plate can be conformed to a curved surface, as well as many recoil pads. Silvers pads bend nicely to curved surfaces. And some other types as well.

I do not blane you for wanting to make the alterations to the stock for better fit and looks. Cheek pieces on doubles in North America is an undesirable feature (generally speaking). And i too would like to remove them from a european gun. But sometimes it just cannot be done given the lines you have to work with.


B.Dudley
Tom C #478470 04/22/17 02:18 PM
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You may think cheek pieces are "butt ugly" but they are part and parcel on German guns. If you shoot it well with the cheekpiece that may change when it's gone.

Learn to live with the cheekpiece or get a gun without one. But they are part of what makes German guns, German guns.


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Tom C #478478 04/22/17 03:50 PM
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OK. The cheek piece stays. It fits me well now that I have taken the comb down. And you are right about it being a German gun and it should have a cheek piece. Maybe if I shoot It well I will learn to enjoy it like an ugly dog that finds birds.


Tom C

�There are some who can live without wild things and some who cannot.�
Aldo Leopold
Tom C #478519 04/23/17 08:18 AM
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Some ultra light models of German guns do not have cheek pieces for that reason, to save weight, but most do.


B.Dudley
Tom C #478521 04/23/17 08:59 AM
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I suspect this gun came back after WWII because somebody names Aichele Mannheim scratched him name in big letters on the right side of the stock.


Tom C

�There are some who can live without wild things and some who cannot.�
Aldo Leopold
Tom C #478555 04/23/17 09:13 PM
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My Hammer 16Ga Ed Kettner has a cheekpiece and I shoot it very well. It feels like any other gunstock, and I agree it belongs in a European/German gun. BillK

Tom C #478561 04/23/17 09:56 PM
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Watch out, unless you want a bunch of cast off the removal of that will increase the cast of a bunch. I have a Saur with a cheek piece and it fits me just like my custom K-80 stock. The K-80 stock has about .25 inch cast off. If I removed the cheek piece from the J P Saur it would have roughly .75 cast off.

bill

Tom C #478650 04/24/17 06:33 PM
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I would no more grind off a cheekpiece from an original cheekpiece gun than I would cut a leg off a three legged bird dog to make him look more symmetrical. Sorry, but that's just me.

Tom C #478651 04/24/17 07:04 PM
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don do hit...


keep it simple and keep it safe...
Tom C #478654 04/24/17 07:25 PM
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I didn't see anywhere and I don't think anyone bothered to ask the op what shoulder he shoots from. If he's a southpaw, shoots the gun well...what's the point of the cheek piece? There isn't. I'm a southpaw and I've had cheek pieces removed purely for aesthetic purposes... the cheek piece does nada for me...and let's face it, most cheek pieces on shotguns are uglier than a hat full of assholes.
A good friend bought a really nice small bore Merkel o/u....he sent it to DES/TSD to remove the cheek piece, clean up the factory checkering (not a great job from the factory)....and now the gun is at least 2x as elegant and not to mention very aesthetically pleasing to the eye. It shoots great too.

Tom C #478777 04/26/17 08:24 AM
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I shoot right handed although I am on the injured reserved list for another 6 weeks having recently had shoulder surgery. The only reason I was going to take the cheek pad off was for asthetic reason but I have decided to leave it on for now. I am in the process of refinishing it for a better fit. If I decide at a later date that I do not like shooting it with the cheek piece I can always redo it in the off season. This is not a collector gun although it is a well made gun with nice engraving and fine checkering. This 16 gauge German gun is heavier than my William Evans 16 gauge because of the heavier barrels but should make a great pheasant gun with the tighter chokes. I may even try a sling on it for the longer hikes although I suspect it will get in the way. It was a nice gun at a good price and requires minimal work.


Tom C

�There are some who can live without wild things and some who cannot.�
Aldo Leopold
Tom C #478956 04/28/17 07:44 AM
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Have you thought about bending the stock for better fit? I would do that before I started carving.


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Tom C #478958 04/28/17 08:01 AM
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I have had stocks bent before and although it helps in most instances, it does not drop the comb enough and that's what causes the cheek slap. I usually go for about 3" DAH and 1 3/8" at the middle of the comb. I need to redo this stock anyways for the butt pad and to remove the name carved into the side so I will just take the comb down until it fits just write. I don't think it will even be noticable after it is done. The cheek piece will stay.

Thanks for suggestions.


Tom C

�There are some who can live without wild things and some who cannot.�
Aldo Leopold
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