I have a side-plate gun that has a couple very small chips at the very end of the inlet area.

Intuitively I would think the fix to keeping it from worsening is to just relieve that area just a fart skin.

It is a 12 ga BSS side plate gun. Steps to stock removal would be appreciate. If this is more involved than a fairly straight forward stock removal and just a bit of scrapping please tell me to back off.

Thanks

Travis,
I haven't seen phots, but it is possible the chips are the result of removing the plates, sometime in the past, making relief unnecessary.
Mike

I was not clear. Sorry. The chips are not at the side plate inletting but at the end of the top tang. Thanks

I don't know why the new format wouldn't take my edit for spelling above.
Mike

Is there, perhaps a bit of oil rot at the head of the stock so that it's not bearing the full brunt of the recoil?

I've see that on tangs and at the rear of side plate actions, including one that I was just looking at yesterday. Bedding the stock's head may be required to move the point of impact between action and wood back to where it should be.

Just a guess on my part, but I would also look at the bolts and the holes in they wood that they pass through. Those holes can take a beating sometimes.

The wood has no oil in the head. The chips(2) are very small and maybe the size of half a BB.

No chips in any of the other inletting.

Well,it was a my best guess. I'd still want to be sure that the head was well mated to the receiver, but perhaps there another explanation.

As Der Ami mentioned, and especially since they're behind the tang. Chips that tiny are often the result of poor disassembly technique. The better (tighter) the inletting the more careful one must be when separating wood and metal, IME. Grain flow can exacerbate this, too.

SRH