doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Restocking a Sterly - Straight or PoW?

Resist the temptation for a straight wrist and keep life (and practicality) simple--go with the POW it currently has. And the POW grip is much more ergonomic than straight. I personally like the appearance of them better than straight. A rounded knob is a nice touch too.

My 1931 Sterlingworth has the pistol grip stock. With the curved lower tang, I don't see how one could make it a straight grip.
Although I restocked this one myself, it is identical to the original except for LOP and drop of comb.

Minor bending may not alter the sear geometry but major will. Also the rear pin may need to be retaped and a new one made. It is all angles. The pin is made for a lower tang angle and the relationship of upper and lower will change. Say the hole is tapped at 85 degrees and after the bend is now 80 degrees so the pin will fit only if forced. To fix correctly I had a new pin made and hole retapped. The sears needed a little attention but I got lucky there. Your luck may be different.

Chuck gives good advise a out drawing it out on paper and see the lines. If you are trying to raise the comb by more than half an inch either the lines get weird or the tangs may have to be bent.

For a hunting gun I much prefer a straight grip as I find them much more comfortable to carry--especially for long periods of time. I recently sold a pistol gripped 20-ga. Sterlingworth because I found it didn't carry as well as my straight gripped guns.

For a bird gun that sees alot more targets than it sees time hunting I can go either way, but I prefer the aesthetics of those that are straight gripped. Those that claim you have more control with pistol gripped guns will get no argument from me, however.

If you do go with a straight grip I'm confident you'll like the final result much more if you have the tangs bent up, because if you don't the result is a funky looking gun. Toby Leeds bent the tangs up on my custom 20-ga. Sterlingworth Special when he converted it to a straight grip and restocked it.

Cback
Note in the pix of he Fox guns that the triggers are on the lower tang, aft of the frame. If you have a Fox apart, you'll see that the sears extend out the aft of the frame slightly behind where the triggers pivot. If you bend the lower tang up the triggers move up slightly. They will engage the sears a bit. The triggers must maintain their relationship to the sears. We're talking a little bit here. The sears may not even need to bent at all. At least my Savage era gun didn't need the sears bent. But an early Fox may be different as they start with more drop.

Chuck, have been stewing in this all day and have come to understand what you are saying. Got the guns out and had some good, close looks at them.

Going to a straight stock may be opening a bigger can of worms than I intended. This is however, a Savage gun.

Instead of bending the sear arms, you can file back the top of the blade of the trigger that engages the sear arm.
It's usually not much if any that's needed. As long as the trigger(s) can move forward far enough when the gun is cocked so the sears can drop into the notches w/o any interference.
The trigger spring keeps them up against the sear arms at all times so they're not rattleing around.

It's not a whole lot of bending and straightening that's done to the tangs to begin with.

The POW grip even benefits from the top tang being straightened & raised up just a touch on some of them.
It just allows the comb to be at a comfortable height w/o the nose looking like a ski jump.

Make it what you want.

Canvasback: The bottom line for me would be fit and weight when you're done. If its a gun with the #4 tubes, I'd go with the stock configuration that kept it lightest, and the English grip has less wood.

This restock did not include any tang straightening as I recall. This was most likely due to the simple point of fit as Lloyd puts its.

Purchased the 90% inletted stock from someone from this site in the 90's. Very little fitting needed.

Lloyd, I'm intending to do two guns. One is has #3 tubes and the other has #1 tubes.