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Posted By: Shotgunjones White Line Spacers - 06/23/21 05:32 PM
What's the history?

I have several guns with white line spacers.

They are 70's vintage and look correct. I wouldn't think of removing them. Of course, I'd never add one or use a replacement pad that had one unless on the proper vintage piece.

In fact, I recently refinished a 1975 Marlin stock that had a nice piece of walnut under that unfortunate Mar-Shield lacquer. It took some judicious working with fine abrasives to make the edges of the spacers white again. The stock looks great with Varathane 'natural' stain under a wiping poly. It would look wrong without the white trim.

So, who was the trendsetter with the white spacers? Weatherby? 1950's? 1960's?
Posted By: KY Jon Re: White Line Spacers - 06/23/21 05:58 PM
The white line recoil pad goes all the way back to 1936. Pachmyar started making them late 1945 or 1946. Mershon was a former partner in pads with white line and sued him for his use of white line in his pads and advertisements. Mershon lost sad to say. In the end everyone who ended up with one of those hideous pads lost as well. I always thought white line pads went best with polyester leisure suits and polyester bell bottom pants.
Posted By: Drew Hause Re: White Line Spacers - 06/23/21 06:16 PM
https://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=504136

1940s but I don't have the exact date

[Linked Image from photos.smugmug.com]

[Linked Image from photos.smugmug.com]

Summary of the suit
https://casetext.com/case/mershon-company-v-pachmayr
Posted By: ed good Re: White Line Spacers - 06/23/21 06:44 PM
an white walled tires, white belts and shoes...hits awl good...
Posted By: Saskbooknut Re: White Line Spacers - 06/23/21 06:52 PM
I thought the white line spacers were an abomination in the 60s and 70s, and they haven't gotten better with age.
They will be the first thing to go from any gun of mine.

You are welcome to choose differently, of course.
Posted By: builder Re: White Line Spacers - 06/23/21 07:43 PM
A little black marker goes a long way.
Posted By: eightbore Re: White Line Spacers - 06/23/21 09:22 PM
One of my SC Parker singles has a clear plexiglas spacer under the recoil pad. It will never be removed. It is an example of some owners having no idea of what they have and how to treat it for future owners.
Posted By: Ted Schefelbein Re: White Line Spacers - 06/23/21 09:58 PM
An un-functional piece of plastic seldom improves anything. But, nobody ever went broke underestimating American taste.


Best,
Ted
Posted By: topgun Re: White Line Spacers - 06/23/21 09:58 PM
I'm probably wrong, but years ago I remember reading of a company that produced and marketed white line pads called the White Line Pad Company (or something very close?) When introduced White Line pads were offered as options by period makers to include LC Smith; and Charles Jerred's unfinished Deluxe grade had such a pad. Later, Frank Pachmyar purchased the White Line Pad Co and continued manufacture; but renamed his rubber pad the "Pachmyar White Line Pad", which name was molded into the rubber face.
I personally despise the looks of these pads, but tons were sold back in the day; and unfortunately were mounted onto some fine guns. I've often wondered how many Parkers ordered with skeleton butt plates now wear a White-line pad like the last example I owned, a 16-bore DHE with 32" barrels?
As to the aforementioned Marlin levers, I own a few Model 336 ADL's from the late 50's early 60's (those with high-grade Bishop stocks) and don't care at all for those hideous white spaces.
Posted By: liverwort Re: White Line Spacers - 06/23/21 10:24 PM
I know what you mean about white line spacers. Like black trousers and white socks. Don't get me started on guns with silver receivers and blued barrels! wink
Posted By: Karl Graebner Re: White Line Spacers - 06/23/21 11:29 PM
Definately not for me!
Karl
Posted By: Buzz Re: White Line Spacers - 06/23/21 11:38 PM
They look ok on some guns, e.g., a Winchester 101 pigeon grade trap with a dark stock. Most I’ve seen of the old one’s are hard as a rock. But, beauty is in the eye of the beholder…..
Posted By: Carl46 Re: White Line Spacers - 06/24/21 09:32 PM
The 1960s brought many fashion disasters, but it also gave us miniskirts. It balances out.
Posted By: Carl46 Re: White Line Spacers - 06/24/21 09:50 PM
The white line looks good on a Nylon 66. Matches the white diamond on the fore end. A time and a place for everything . . .
Posted By: KY Jon Re: White Line Spacers - 06/25/21 02:34 AM
https://casetext.com/case/mershon-company-v-pachmayr

This is the real story. It is an interesting read if you want to know what happened and when it happened.


"There came a time in 1936 when, by mutual consent, Pachmayr withdrew from the business, leaving Mershon or the Mershon Company owner of and continuing in the business and possessed of a valid agreement by which Pachmayr agreed not to compete in business with Mershon for thirty months. The agreement was lived up to, but after expiration of the given time, Pachmayr resumed business as Mershon's competitor and made and sold recoil pads without the white line feature or symbol. " "However, sometime in 1945, Pachmayr's pad appeared on the market with the white line exactly as it had been used during the period in which Pachmayr and Mershon were together." So white line pads must have been made in or before 1936. Still ugly to this day.
Posted By: Ted Schefelbein Re: White Line Spacers - 06/25/21 03:12 AM
Originally Posted by Carl46
The white line looks good on a Nylon 66. Matches the white diamond on the fore end. A time and a place for everything . . .

I’m trying to recall if I have ever heard anyone say a Nylon 66 looked good. Pretty sure I haven’t.

Might be a time and place with nothing.

Best,
Ted
Posted By: DoubleTake Re: White Line Spacers - 06/25/21 03:42 AM
Originally Posted by Ted Schefelbein
Originally Posted by Carl46
The white line looks good on a Nylon 66. Matches the white diamond on the fore end. A time and a place for everything . . .

I’m trying to recall if I have ever heard anyone say a Nylon 66 looked good. Pretty sure I haven’t.

Might be a time and place with nothing.

Best,
Ted

They were pretty accurate though. My dad despised bluejays for some reason and one time one landed on a diagonal support wire for a telephone pole just behind our place on the edge of our small town. He was pretty strict about where I could shoot, but he let me take a crack at it, and he just about fainted when I nailed the bluejay with the Nylon 66. I agree, they weren't much to look at.
Posted By: Carl46 Re: White Line Spacers - 06/25/21 05:43 AM
That was a bit tongue in cheek. If you like the Nylon 66, you will love the white spacer and the white diamond on the fore end. ;-)

I never wanted a Nylon 66, but they were quite popular in their day. Remington sold thousands of them. They had kind of a space age look, which appealed to some. Some others liked the Ruger 10/22 and the Marlin M1, which looked like M1 carbines, and some preferred the Marlin 39 for its Western look. Now a lot of people buy .22s that look like ARs. As the postman said, "To each his zone."

None of this affects shooting. We don't see the butt while shooting, any more than we see the whitewall tires while driving.
Posted By: Der Ami Re: White Line Spacers - 06/25/21 12:05 PM
Having killed a pickup load of squirrels with mine, the Nylon 66 looks pretty good to me.
Mike
Posted By: GMCS Re: White Line Spacers - 06/25/21 12:15 PM
I just removed a factory installed white line spacer from a rare Fox wildfowl. (1 of 39 made).not because it was ugly but because it was too long for me to shoot with my heavy duck hunting jacket. I put the pad in a bag in case the next owner wants to put it back in original condition. If it doesn't work out this year I will have a stock made to my specs and save the original to pass on.
Posted By: SKB Re: White Line Spacers - 06/25/21 12:37 PM
Nylon 66 was the first gun I ever fired, owned by my uncle and plenty of fun through my teen years. They have a strong collector market when in good shape, rare colors bring more.

I won't be adding a white line spacer to the Rigby pattern 98 I'm building currently but on the old Nylon 66 they are right at home.
Posted By: Drew Hause Re: White Line Spacers - 06/25/21 12:50 PM
The Fray-Mershon “White Line” pad was patented in 1937
https://patents.google.com/patent/US2091010A/en


[Linked Image from photos.smugmug.com]
Posted By: Run With The Fox Re: White Line Spacers - 06/25/21 12:55 PM
A white line pad on a Purdey?? Sort of like seeing a Porsche 911 with a pair of giant white dice hanging from the rear view mirror.. RWTF
Posted By: DoubleTake Re: White Line Spacers - 06/25/21 01:56 PM
Originally Posted by Carl46
That was a bit tongue in cheek. If you like the Nylon 66, you will love the white spacer and the white diamond on the fore end. ;-)

I never wanted a Nylon 66, but they were quite popular in their day. Remington sold thousands of them. They had kind of a space age look, which appealed to some. Some others liked the Ruger 10/22 and the Marlin M1, which looked like M1 carbines, and some preferred the Marlin 39 for its Western look. Now a lot of people buy .22s that look like ARs. As the postman said, "To each his zone."

None of this affects shooting. We don't see the butt while shooting, any more than we see the whitewall tires while driving.

Carl, I was just thinking about how I was attracted to that Nylon 66 in my youth and I suppose if I were young now I'd most likely be clamoring for black guns and firepower. Glad it didn't work out that way.
Posted By: Shotgunjones Re: White Line Spacers - 06/25/21 02:04 PM
Earlier than I thought.

Thanks for sharing the research.

How is a Nylon 66 anything but beautiful?

Remarkable design for 1959.

Wayne Leek worked on that. He also designed the 1100.

I have a Nylon 66 just because everyone should have one.

Never thought it especially accurate but if you miss you have a whole tube of fast backup shots.
Posted By: Ted Schefelbein Re: White Line Spacers - 06/25/21 08:15 PM
Originally Posted by Shotgunjones
Earlier than I thought.

Thanks for sharing the research.

How is a Nylon 66 anything but beautiful?

Remarkable design for 1959.

Wayne Leek worked on that. He also designed the 1100.

I have a Nylon 66 just because everyone should have one.

Never thought it especially accurate but if you miss you have a whole tube of fast backup shots.


When I was a kid, it came to me fairly quickly on that people who built stuff didn’t build stuff out of plastic to make it better.

I had that figured out, with all my neighborhood buddies, by about age 7. My Dad helped, but, I knew.

A Nylon 66 isn’t beautiful. I never wanted one. I wanted a Belgium built Browning auto .22, grade two. I wanted that from about age 7.

I still don’t have it. But, the good news is I don’t have a Nylon 66, deliberately, or by accident, either.

Best,
Ted
Posted By: Carl46 Re: White Line Spacers - 06/25/21 08:49 PM
I actually have a Nylon 66. My brother bought one in 1964 and used it for the rest of his life. His widow gave it to me a few months ago. It still works. I'll probably take it out and shoot some squirrels this fall in his memory.

My father in law had a Browning .22 auto. Went well with his Sweet Sixteen, Light 12, and BAR. Beautiful little rifle (no white line pad), but I never cared for the way it put hot brass down the left sleeve with its bottom ejector.

I live in a place where squirrel season is 8 months long and the daily limit is 10. I can justify almost any number of rimfire rifles, and a pistol or two.
Posted By: Ted Schefelbein Re: White Line Spacers - 06/26/21 12:55 AM
My Dad had a Remington 241, which, was a man sized rifle, nowhere near as petite as the Browning, but, they functioned identically. You can figure out how to avoid the hot brass. By the time I was old enough to have the scratch for the Browning, it dawned on me that the thing was just too little, and I really didn’t want it anymore.

My son owns the 241 that my Dad bought new in 1947. I own a Remington 552 and a Remington 581. None of them have white line spacers.

Best,
Ted
Posted By: Stanton Hillis Re: White Line Spacers - 06/26/21 01:38 AM
There is nothing especially demeaning about owning a Nylon 66, IMO. My wife owns an Apache Black model I gave her new about 1972, after she proved to me she could kill bullfrogs with a shot to the white throat patch, with very few misses. She liked the looks of them and I got her one. She once killed 13 frogs with 14 shots with hers. It has now pretty much been relegated to the status of "armadillo gun". She's 70, and night before last she set her alarm for 3 a.m. and got up, got her rechargeable spotlight and her .22, and did a walkabout around the yard looking for armadillos.

They're not target guns, and they aren't for purists, but they are dog nuts dependable, and there's been a many a one of them used on Alaskan traplines for dispatching furbearers. Not to mention gators in the bayous and sloughs, squirrels, rabbits, whatever.

AFA dependability goes, maybe someone is old enough to remember this, I do, ........ in 1959 Tom Frye set a record by shooting 100,004 two and half inch wooden blocks, thrown into the air, with Nylon 66s, out of a total of 100,010 thrown. Only six misses. I can't remember the dependability factor of the rifles used but AIR it was very high. There was a picture published by Remington that showed Tom sitting on the pile of blocks with a 66.

I was given a Nylon 11 for Christmas in 1965, when I was 14. It was a bolt action, clip fed model. Futuristic styling, but very dependable and plenty accurate for any small game hunting.
Posted By: Saskbooknut Re: White Line Spacers - 06/26/21 01:52 AM
When I was a kid, and the Nylon 66 was relatively new, I had a Cooey Model 60 bolt action repeater. I only remember seeing the brown model of Nylon 66 among my friends.
The kids with a Nylon 66 were always out of ammo, and seemed to think that I should share with them.
That wasn't ever going to happen.
The Cooey .22 is long gone, but I was a happy kid with a $5 gun, bought from a mechanic who worked for my Dad.
Posted By: Ted Schefelbein Re: White Line Spacers - 06/26/21 05:07 AM
When I was a kid, my ammunition came mostly from garage sales, where it was cheap, and if they had longs, or, shorts, I happily bought it all, and offered my friends as much as they wanted, which, was always politely declined. I had the only gun, the 552, that shot short, long, or long rifle interchangeably.
The 581 does the same thing, but, I wasn’t a kid when I got it.

Best,
Ted
Posted By: DoubleTake Re: White Line Spacers - 06/26/21 10:51 AM
I've got my dad's old Remington Model 41 Targetmaster. It's not a high level target gun, very basic single shot cocked by pulling the knob. It does have a 27" barrel which I find interesting. He gave me my first lesson in sportsmanship when I was about 9 and tagging along on a squirrel hunt. After he shot a couple squirrels high in a tree with the 41 he turned and said, "If you can't shoot the squirrel in the head it deserves to live." Hunting birds with with doubles brings me full circle. Two shots are enough.
Posted By: Tom Findrick Re: White Line Spacers - 06/26/21 02:12 PM
Originally Posted by Stanton Hillis
AFA dependability goes, maybe someone is old enough to remember this, I do, ........ in 1959 Tom Frye set a record by shooting 100,004 two and half inch wooden blocks, thrown into the air, with Nylon 66s, out of a total of 100,010 thrown. Only six misses. I can't remember the dependability factor of the rifles used but AIR it was very high. There was a picture published by Remington that showed Tom sitting on the pile of blocks with a 66.

That Remington ad was awesome.
I was just a little kid then, but I remember Tom Frye sitting on the pile of blocks in the stack of older American Rifleman mags given to me by a neighbor.
Posted By: LeFusil Re: White Line Spacers - 06/26/21 03:08 PM
Nothing in the world wrong with a Nylon 66. Including it’s looks. I always thought they were space age, cool looking guns…and I saw my first one in the early 80’s. I’ve owned a few too, always enjoyed them. Nope, they aren’t Marlin 39’s, brownings, Winchester 52’s, etc. but I don’t think they were ever meant to be. One thing I noticed about the 66…it will eat up every single brand of .22 out there without a hiccup. I’ve seen some absolutely disgustingly dirty 66’s that just kept plugging away. Brownings won’t do that.
When it comes to firearm practicality….plastics are light years ahead of wood. No need to even argue that.

Agree….white lines look cool & are right at home on a 66.
Posted By: Shotgunjones Re: White Line Spacers - 06/26/21 09:02 PM
You need to take a Nylon 66 apart to really appreciate the thing.

They sold over a million of them, and I'd venture to say that the vast majority of them are still serviceable.

There were some innovations going on at that time, to try to serve the market.

People were not as affluent as now, money was tight. American gun makers have always been hanging by a thread from bankruptcy.

The Remington Nylon guns were a quite a risk to put into production. They sold well.

Winchester tried the alloy frame shotguns about the same time without really understanding that steel was necessary in certain places, something the Italians figured out a couple decades later. They even covered a spiral wound barrel with fiberglass to introduce something new that was strong and light weight.

The point is that design innovations at great risk to the companies involved were happening in the 1960 era.

I'm all for traditional gun making, but this era is part of our history and they did come out with some remarkable designs.
Posted By: MrCrockett Re: White Line Spacers - 06/26/21 10:06 PM
My Super X 1 came with a white line spacer. It is shown in the exploded view iin the manual and has a part #. It's a very early standard field model with a pacmyr (sp?) Pad. I have recently rediscovered the joy and gratification of shooting it (at targets only)! I also decided it looked a little beat up so I lightly ran a little 0000 over it and the wood cleaned up beautifully (barely touched it!). I cleaned the edge of the spacer while I was changing the buffer. It's only an eighth thick, so I may gaze at it without. The wood and pad are a little proud at the spacer and always have been.
Dave B.
Posted By: KY Jon Re: White Line Spacers - 06/26/21 11:23 PM
The Nylon 66 was a perfect tie in with DuPont. Don’t forget that Remington was basically owned by DuPont when the Nylon 66 was made. Just as their bolt action pistol looked like a space age weapon the 66 was a futuristic looking gun. And most likely cheap to make in large numbers once all the molds and methods were perfected.
Posted By: Stanton Hillis Re: White Line Spacers - 06/27/21 01:06 AM
Originally Posted by KY Jon
You need to take a Nylon 66 apart to really appreciate the thing.

Did that once, in college. They were having a turkey shoot on Friday to see who could place a bullet closest to the center. It was a .22 rifle shoot ............closest to the bullseye. Well, when I arrived back at the dorm on Sunday evening I decided Dad's rifle had never been stripped and cleaned, and I would do so. The turkey shoot was on the following Friday, so I took her apart. And, cleaned her. Putting her back together proved to be not so easy. There was a spring that was a b---- to get back in place. I worked for several days before getting it in properly. At least, I thought it was "properly".

When Friday came I took it down to the area where the turkey shoot was being held. I learned that you paid your fee, they gave you a cartridge, you shot at a red dime-sized dot, with open sights, at about 25 yards, and waited until 9 more did the same thing. Then, the 10 targets were compared and the winner was chosen, the one with the bullet hole closest to the center of the red dot. I asked if I could have a cartridge to shoot at the ground just to see if the rifle would function, as I hadn't tried it since reassembling it. They said "No". I took my bullet, aimed carefully, and sent it. The range guy walked down and looked with me as he pulled the target, and the hole was dead center ......... a pin wheel. Took a turkey home to Mom that afternoon.

I don't own a Nylon 66 now, but if I ever do I won't take it completely apart, and have to put the spring in again. It's a dog.
Posted By: Shotgunjones Re: White Line Spacers - 06/27/21 02:51 AM
Originally Posted by Stanton Hillis
It's a dog.

Woof woof. You'd love the Winchester 74.

The one I almost gave up on is called a Miroku 'Liberty Chief' 38 special snubby.

That was given to me after it's owner was told by his gunsmith that it was out of time and couldn't be fixed.

This turned out to be the only thing ever spoken by a gunsmith that I can vouch for as being completely true.

I tried for days to reassemble the 'lockwork' on that bastard. Several springs, the bolt, and a few other small parts had to be held just so while the sideplate was reinstalled.

Finally got lucky after maybe 100 attempts. It's back to the state I received it in, never to be disassembled again.

Hell of it is, the thing is very accurate... just don't try to double action it.
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