I can tell you've free-handed around a lot of pad toes, Kensal. Any of them fair into the underbelly of the stock? I'd say you're pretty much full of it as the only pads and buttplates which fit perfectly are those which were screwed to the stock and then shaped, which is to say ground down together with an object to which they're attached. Producing the same result with the pad screwed to a finished stock might indeed require a nearly infinite amount of "hand work" to produce a flush transition. In a similar vein, how many stocks are filed flush to an engraved and finished receiver? Addons and retrofits produce compromises in the real world if not in yours and "perfection" is often produced by a highly rationalized (and not particularly skill-intensive) method.
jack
