doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Hiding sling swivel holes

The lead pellet works decently for the barrel holes (front swivel) but does nothing for the rear swivel holes in the buttstock. I think the best solution there is to find a small walnut wood dowel, orient the grain as best as possible, glue a piece in each hole, work it down carefully to match the existing contours, and touch-up stain and finish. It won't be invisible, naturally, but it's a decent solution if you are hell bent to get rid of the swivel holes. If you can remove the butt plate or recoil pad or whatever you have on the end of the butt, you can actually cut a couple of small pieces out from under there with a plug cutter (available at many tool suppliers) and come nearer matching the color of the wood. I prefer to reinstall swivels, you would be surprised at how handy a nice braided leather style strap can be on a long day's upland hunt. I have several of them on my guns and absolutely love them.

Someone once said to put a metal oval inletted into the stock on the aft one. The welding and reblue seems extreme for the forward holes. Frankly, the black silicone seems to appeal to me more than the other plugging options.

But, putting a sling back on is the most appealing to me.

I've had Keith do two for me. I couldn't tell on the barrel's on either gun. Fantastic job. I think he charged to $100. PS. I had a stock guy install an oval. It's wasn't great and wasn't awful.

I'd want to try on a scrap set of barrels first, but I'll bet one could plug small screw holes in a bottom rib with a couple quick spots of MIG weld into the holes, quickly followed by a wet cloth or perhaps covering the solder joint with the heat absorbing compound sold by Brownells or Certanium. The key would be to localize the heat and contain it to a small spot and cool it before it could melt the solder. And you would sure want to hit the sides of the holes in the rib and not have the MIG wire travel through and arc on the barrels.

I am thinking this is probably how Keith Kearcher did it so reasonably as it would certainly be more expensive to remove the rib, weld and dress the plugged holes, relay the rib, and reblue.

I have also seen holes and badly damaged stocks patched over the damaged area with a thin veneer of matching walnut. After the patch is glued in place, it is dressed down and an x-acto knife or scribe is used to extend pores across the glue joint to fool the eye and hide the closely matched joint.

There was also a thread here a year or so ago that showed the work of someone quite talented who painted matching wood grain onto a walnut stock extension. It was pretty remarkable how good it looked, and it was a much larger area than a couple screw holes.

I'd buy the beer to watch how he did it. Given the size of the rib, I don't believe anything can be done to prevent the solder from melting when you put a 10,000F MIG arc less than a 1/8" from the solder joint. Removing the lower rib can be done in a few minutes without disturbing the upper rib or forend lug and short under rib. I've done that. Once off the barrels, welding the lower rib would be easy enough. Like I said, I'd buy the beer to watch how he did it.

Perhaps he TIG'd it? Isn't there a micro-TIG setuo available that would work for that app?

I think it would take a lot more time to bring the base metal and filler rod up to fusion temperature with a small TIG tungsten than it would to touch the MIG wire to the side of a screw hole and give a quick shot of the trigger. It might take 2 or 3 shots to fill the hole, cooling the spot of weld between shots. The heat absorbing paste I referenced above is pretty remarkable stuff. I have filled small holes in both sheet metal and heavier stock and had the heat (tempering colors) run very little. Yes, I know blue heat color running much more than 1/8" is high enough to melt solder. But I still think the heat control paste might prevent melting and seperating of the solder joint. I imagine one could go a step further and fill both barrels with cold water and then plug both ends. Ever try to solder a pipe with any water in it?

I'm not willing to bet the farm yet, but I really think this would be possible. On the other hand, I agree that just putting the sling swivels back on would be the easiest, cheapest, and most appropriate solution for this particular gun.

I'm not a welder but I have used a welder who has a laser micro-welder. He could plug the barrel holes without melting the solder. I have used lead shot and cold blue will darken the lead.

For the butt, cut off the swivel and make the base into a screw with a slot. Polish it and fire blue it and it will look nice.

Now I just take out the swivels, drill the holes out to QD swivel size and use a sling when I need it.