doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com "Butt Transplant"

Does anyone have experience with such an operation (stock graft) done to a
straight-hand gun?
Pictures?

Early thanks.

JC

JC,
I would think the man that wrote the little book I got my information from would be best (X-chisles).

Chuck, thanks for you reply. I do have the little book you mention but I would
really like to see pictures of an operation on a straight-hand stock as the angles
involved I imagine are rather different. Hopefully CC/DT will come along.

Your butt transplant looks very neat btw. :-)

JC

Had one done by Keith Kearcher on an AYA 56 in 2005. Have been happy with it. tim

Good Evening Gentlemen, When cutting off a "Butt" with a Straight-Hand' I have reverted to my method of a very small Mortice & Tenon joint, Acra-Glass the 'Joint" then when all set-up,,,aprox 72 hrs, Under-side UP, into the milling machine, mill a as long as possible, and as deep as possible from each side of the "Joint" and as wide as the Trigger-Guard Tang the " Slot" Make & install a "French-Walnut Fillit" (Tradition calls for French Walnut)Fit the Fillit' in. Glue well & Good,Re-fit the trigger guard and I always try to use the original guard screws. Very much stronger than the original stock at that part of the "Hand" (Grip)I have set several stocks after this procedure. with no "Ill" effects. The smallest stock I Re-Butted" using this metod was a Westley 28 bore, Took the 12.1/2"length out to 14.7/8th. Bored & balanced it, now on the 3rd Generation in the same Family."Measure twice, then once again, Cut once" Hope this helps...cc/dt

Crossedchisles:
Any hope for this victim?? It's a grade 3 L.C. Smith It's a Grade 3 L.C. Smith.

Hello and thank you CC/DT,

The fillet as in the chapter "Give Us A break" of your book? Any pictures by any
chance to ascertain the size of mortise/tenon and cutting angle?

Thanks in advance.

JC

Italian..Not to be "Flippant" (Friday, should be at the Pub with the Crowd, but Big Storm headed in to the N>E>Coast.) But.. the Nice G 3.Smith would be a Quite Straight forward "Trans-Butt" job. Would suggest that the Action-Tang be Glass-bedded as the trigger-plate tang should be, re-fitting the "Hand-pin"to make sure they are solid in the stock. When the New Back-end is fitted and you are shaping up the "Stock" a lot of stress will be put onto the old stock at the "Head". Where to put the "Cut-Off"..each stockmaker has different Ideas as to "The Unkindest Cut'placement....The Lobsters are waiting.....cc/dt

I thought it was called the "JEEEEZUS Cut" after the exclamation the made by the first guy that did this. Once you made this cut you'll know exactly why.

George Flame used to "paint in the grain" so repairs would match. Your LCS would look pretty good with a refinish and a grain painting session. Know an art teacher-student??
bill

Oops, sorry. I thought this was going to be a "Hillary" thread.

Morning Pete,



JC

re the lc smith: send it to mark larson for his artful grain paint job...

make sure you pack it well, fully insured for the full value of the whole gun and insist that mark do likewise for the full value of the gun, for the return shipment...

It took Ed ten years and plus to give us his wonderful advise.

Can this be done in reverse? I have a stock with a very nice butt stock, but the wood around the locks has been broken beyond repair. Can you attach a new head to the old butt stock?

What is the point of that? most of the work is in the inletting. At that point, it is best to just restock.

If you find a decent donor stock, for the head part, I would think it could be done just to save a great looking butt stock. I had a Belgian Guild gun which had a full wrist fracture, which I thought about just having a new wrist and head stock inlet then save the fancy butt stock to graft into it. Ended up doing a glass bed repair with new billets of French walnut to fix the broken center structure. Used the gun for a season with no problems. I tried the repair because I did not want to I let the new wood. Sometimes you can fix them and sometimes they just need to be lamps.

Del Whitman did one in reverse on an Island Lock Purdey hammer gun. Came out nice but I think cost is probably close to restocking. The owner wanted to maintain as much of the original gun as he could.

Allow me to clarify a point regarding �butt transplants� that most do not realize. The proceedure involves putting NEW wood onto an original head and wrist. Not taking half of one stock and attaching it to another.

I get asked about the former often. Not a good idea to attempt.

Kody Kearcher did a butt transplant for me on a 20g Christophe SLE with excellent results in terms of both the requested dimensions and appearance.

The buttstock behind the grip had been very amateurly cut and spliced to change drop and length of pull and looked like Frankenstein, the the quality best engraving by Schoffeniels made it worth saving.

The wrist splice is slightly visible if you know it�s there.

Will see if I can get pics in next 24 hours

Before and after photos of the 20ga SLE Butt Transplant by Kody Kearcher. He also recut the checkering, put the barrels back on face and polished the rough inside of the barrels. I had already striped and cleaned the locks etc. The gun was purchased for less than $1k. In the end it is a good rainy day gun with less than a year long wait and less than $1,600 (if I remember correctly) all told when done.


before



After

I apologize for the bad quality pictures as the after appearance is better than the pics show. My iPhone and I will never win any photography contest

nice work...lotta money...

Old Colonel, was Kody able to dial in your drops and cast accurately? Looks like a nice job.

Yes he gave me the cast and drops I wanted. Both of which made the gun much more shootable for me and an improvement on the original dimensions.

The only two negatives were:

1. It took over a year to get it back (fortunately I was deployed for the later part of that so it did not matter)
2. He did not hollow out the butt at all and I had to removed 5 ounces of wood under the Buttplate to get it back to a point of balance I wanted 4 1/2 inches ahead of the front trigger (a relatively easy thing to do)

Make sure you get someone who knows what He's doing.

A couple of years ago I had a Parker Trojan that had the butt cut off at a bad angle and as the gun was in good shape I wanted a new stock put on it.
The gunsmith talked me out of it, saying he could do a butt transplant for a lot less and I would not be able to tell that it had been done.
Well I got the gun back and you could clearly see the seam where it had been rather crudely done, He told me it would never come apart and he said he had run long wooden dowels through the joint. About 3 months later I was shooting skeet and the gun came apart in my hand. I brought it back to the smith and he apologized and said he had been trying a new glue, but he would fix it forever this time and run carbon fiber rods through it.
About a month later the same thing happened, this time totally destroying the trigger guard. This time the smith was mad as hell saying he would fix it this time but it was the last time and he said I must have dropped it. Well he said he fixed it good and he claimed this time he put stainless steel rods through it. (by the way each time it broke there was no sign of rods of any kind through it).
This time it lasted a week and broke apart again. I said the hell with it and glued it up myself, this time it lasted about 6 months and broke again so I replaced the stock with one I bought on Ebay.
I will never have a stock transplant again.
Pete

I agree completely. Done poorly it is not worth the bother.

Testing the repair with good use is important. I have hunted the gun a number times since I got it back and put it through several rounds of clays as well. For me it is a back up and not a primary

I am very surprised that someone would talk you out of restocking. That is always the best option in any situation.
Sounds like maybe restocking wasnt up to that smith�s skill level and he knew it. But maybe a transplant wasnt either.