Customizing a field stock for a pump shotgun

[Highpower]

TomG's thread on making a trap stock prodded me into looking for an old used wood stock (again) to go onto my late father's Stevens 820 pump shotgun. It came from the factory with a "Tenite" (plastic) stock that I have always hated. The pitch of the stock is wrong and it didn't fit me well at all. The sharp toe of the hard plastic butt plate always dug into my armpit leaving me a nice big bruise at the end of a day shooting clays. The stock often twisted into different positions at times because of a somewhat sloppy fit to the receiver of the gun.


Occasionally I would see a used stock turn up on eBay (rare) but they were always cracked, broken and/or missing chucks of wood and still sold for over $50. Since seeing Tom's thread I started looking again, and discovered that Boyd's stock company finally started producing replacement stocks for this gun. Brand new walnut stock (semi-inletted) for $46.




The stock came with a thin hard plastic butt plate attached. Too bad the screw holes were drilled off center. That doesn't really matter though since I need to cut the stock off anyway to correct the pitch and length of pull to fit me anyway. With my bum shoulders I'm going to install a mechanical recoil reducer and a 1" recoil pad as well. I'm not a wuss mind you... I'm just getting older and can't handle a couple hundred 12 ga. rounds in one outing like I used to. I drilled out the existing screw holes and glued in some hardwood dowel rods because the spacing of the holes in the new recoil pad is different. After the stock is cut to length I'll have good solid wood to drill for the new screw holes.



The portion of the stock at the wrist end was lacking any inletting to clear the ribs of the trigger housing and the bolt carrier. The carrier extends outside the back of the receiver when the action is opened. I cut the openings needed with a woodruff cutter on the mill and proceeded to glass bed the stock to the receiver. The white/tan material is modeling clay that fills in any areas that you don't want any of the epoxy mixture getting into. The blue material is a release agent to prevent the epoxy from adhering to any of the metal parts. The brown blob above the center hole is excess epoxy that got squeezed out in the bedding (molding) process when the parts are clamped together.

  

This is the result after a bit of clean up. On the left is the original hollowed out plastic stock with oversize alignment slots. On the right is a skin tight fit between metal and wood when it's assembled. Even the tapered tang on the trigger housing is molded to the inside of the stock bolt hole about 3/4" deep. Another benefit is the epoxy coating helps keep cleaning solvents and oil from seeping into the end grain of the stock.



I also have to rework an old action bar and tube, and a wood forearm I picked up on eBay. The action bar is molded into the Tenite forearm on the original, and is all one piece. I can't just slip a wood forearm onto it.

As with most of Boyd's stocks (in my experience) they are somewhat oversize to allow for final fitting to a receiver. The wrist area is quite a bit taller and just a little wider than the guns receiver, so I'll need to do some filing and sanding there. I don't have any of the woodworking tools (or skills) that Tom has so don't expect too much from me on this. I'm just getting started and it could (most likely will) get ugly.... 

Cutting the butt end could prove to be a problem also. I may have to look into renting a nice big miter saw.