doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DIY Gunsmithing @ doublegunshop.com Silvers pad install

Is there a tap available to cut threads for the screws that come with a silvers pad. It is a square thread but would be hard pressed to call it acme. If not what diameter hole would you drill to install the screws. Maybe someone could post a short tutorial. Thanks.

Hi Ghost. I see we have no answers to your question so I hope this is of some help,

As for a tutorial I feel that may be taking things a little too far. Other than that I will give you the rough outline of how to go about thing in sequence but I will start with your screw question. The screw that you are describing is the traditional type of wood screw that was made as one off screws by a gunsmith on a screw cutting lathe, using a single cutting tool with one 45 degree profile which was ground to this profile by eye so it looked right to the man (I have seen many differing profiles). This traditional handmade shape is still produced today by specialist makers for the gun industry. But in the end any modern wood screw of the correct length and size will be fine.
Firstly compare the old pad mounting hole spacing in the stock with the ones in your new pad. The chances of them lining up will be slim but it has been known for it to happen. First see if you can reuse one of the holes if you can it is good practice to plug the other with a small hard wood plug, if it is not possible to reuse either hole plug both. At this point I line a ruler with the centre of each of the two holes and draw a pencil line which will become the centre datum line for one or the two new mounting holes in your new pad. Today there has been a trend to ignore the traditional way to put screws in to timber and I am guilty of this myself, we just push the point of the screw into the surface and drive it in and in my case with an electric screwdriver. You must not do this with the gun screw you describe, a screw core clearance hole must be made or the screw will act as a wedge with two wedges in a straight line splitting of the timber can happen. So for all gun wood screws measure the core diameter and drill a hole in the wood to let the core of the screw freely pass but allowing the threaded portion to cut into the hole walls.
Next place your new pad on the stock and adjust the pad to wood fit and try to keep the pad in the same position each time you move it by aligning the holes in the bad with the hole positions in the stock.
When you are satisfied that the wood to pad fit is good you should then fit the pad in its final position with the screws. A lot of pads have screw clearance holes but they do not go as far as the outside of the pad they stop quite close to the outside surface, to find where they are put a screw down the hole from the pads base and you will see it put a bulge in the rubber. To allow the screw head to pass through the pad I cut a slit in the rubber with a very sharp blade, it is a very good idea to lubricate the rubber around where you have cut to allow the screw head to pass easily without damaging the rubber leaving no signs of the screws entry, other rubber pads may have screw covering plugs to hide the screw heads. Finally you remove the excess pad down to the wood taking your time, some people use a grind stone others use a belt sander this sounds like a simple operation but it is far from that one slip and you can remove wood very quickly.
Just my thoughts! From the question you have asked I feel that this is your first attempt at fitting recoil pad to a gun, so don�t let this first time effort be on a very expensive gun because you don�t want to have a learning curve on a rich dark and beautiful piece of Turkish Walnut do we!!
What I have told you is the basics and may be some other members will post how they go about things because there are as many differing ways of fitting a recoil pad as there are guns. And the more pads you fit the easier things will become
Good luck
Damascus

Damascus, Thank you for the input. Actually my second pad. My problem is even with a bore diameter hole and lubed threads the screw seems to tear rather than cut the wood. That said after they have been in and out a few times for fitting they seem to loosen up a bit. Thought there might be a better way and trying to avoid plugging the hole and redrilling it.

Odd thought: Were the screws long enough, I might be tempted to notch the first few threads so as to form a "tap" out of the screw itself. I would do this only if I had sufficient thread beyond the notch to hold my item or if the screws were common so I could replace them with unmolested ones. With any scheme, I would use a pilot hole as Damascus describes.

Screws are as they came with the Silvers pad, plenty of length and about .200+ diameter. Wouldn't the notching cause further problems if the screws were run in-out multiple times. I'm having a hard time figuring out how to fit the pad and only run them in once. Need some fitting screws like those used for stock bedding!

Prairie ghost: Is there something sacred about the screws that came with the pad? Why not use standard screws? They will be hidden when the job is complete.

From your comments above it seems that your pilot holes are not deep enough or the correct size. I have had this problem with plugged holes and it has always been the depth of the hole and another 64th in the drill size.

I think that Damascus has given you awfully good advice.

Just my 2 cents. R.

I've had no experience with "notched screws" but, with the proper technique screwing the same screws in and out multiple times won't be a problem. That technique is this: when replacing any screw into the hole it came out of the first thing that should be done is to place it into the hole and put light pressure on it with the screwdriver, then turn it BACKWARDS until you feel the threads on the screw engage with the cuts in the wood they have already made. Then, turn it clockwise and it will be in the same threads it originally cut. Simple procedure, but very important.

SRH

I have always drilled my pilot holes for pad screws at about 0.5mm more than the shank diameter of the screw, depending on the screw it seems to be 3mm or 4mm or between. I just want a balance between being easy enough to put in but not so easy the threads don't have enough to grip on. If you are worried about drilling too big a hole then drill a small hole say 2.5mm for fitting screws and just use some normal short household screws, the supplied screws are sightly fatter and courser so once fitted you could drill the holes out to 3mm or whatever it needs to be and use them for the final job.

On this thread ( which has gone a bit dead because i have not done anything with this gun for a while ) I install a silvers pad and you can see how it works for me.

http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbt...1168#Post421168

If you are really worried that you are going to be taking the pad on and off that many times order two bolts and two threaded inserts, by fitting the threaded inserts you can back your bolts in and out as much as you like with no issues.

Good advice all. Thank you. Stan, that may be why my screws seem to be depleting the threaded wood. A little here, a little there and pretty soon they are loosey goosey. FWTW, my pilot hole dia. and depth was fine.

Two old timer tricks- if the drilled holes in the butt become "over-sized, shim or pack them with broken-off pieces of toothpicks, they will crunch and compress as you turn the wood screws home, also lube the screw threads with moistened Ivory soap before you turn them home. RWTF