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

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.