English Gentlemans rifle butt plate installation

[Gene Carrell]

I have one of Jim Chambers' fine English Gentlemans rifle kits on the  builders bench. The barrel, lock, and trigger are all in place. Now, how to inlet the butt plate with the figure on top so that it looks like it grew there. The techniques used with KY longrifle plates will not work. Any secrets that I should know before starting? Thanks in advance.

[willyr]

A good single malt helps.
Bill

[RossN]

Hi Gene
I am waiting on one of these kits myself, but with a left hand L&R Queen Anne lock to allow for shooting the other way... What caliber did you choose? How does the wood look? Any chance of some photo's? (Please)
I am off to visit my father in the UK in a couple of weeks, and will be taking a trip through the Royal Armoury in Leeds- Dad is a friend of the curator so I  hope to be able to take a HEAP of pictures to help with my build.
This is probably no help to you, so all the best of luck with your inletting.
Regards
Ross

[willyr]

Seriously, I have done two of the English style buttplates and they are a little more tedious than , say, a Tennessee buttplate. Just go slow and have the butt profile as close to final profile as possible before starting.
     The first one I did was on a .54 caliber "express rifle" and it turned out really good. The transition at the heel is the trickiest part. About two years after the rifle was finished, the owner cut it off and added a recoil pad to the rifle- I would gladly have murdered him.
Be Well,
Bill Ridout

[rallen]

Chambers English rifle is a nice piece. If I recall correctly, it uses a fowler butt plate. As Bill said, true up the butt profile so you can inlet the finial straight down. With the tab under the finial for a pin, you can set up some lines (a center line etc.) to orient the plate and the mortise for the tab. Save the single malt for after you are done.
Ryan

[George F.]

Got a question...What does a Gentlemans English Butt plate look like? Are they similar to the fowlers with the curved inside corners? I've done a fowler buutplate and an early style butt plate with the round inside corners. They just take time. It wasn't so bad for me because  when I inlet a butt plate I inlet  the whole butt plate, and I only use a chisel. Are these butt plates like yours?   ...Geo.

[Jim Chambers]

Here's a photo - it's a doosie! 

[Gene Carrell]

Thanks Jim. I am not yet able to post pictures.

[George F.]

WHAT  A  NIGHTMARE ! ! !

[Jim Chambers]

Yep, it'll sure separate the gunmakers from the wan-a-bees.  But, when properly done it looks really impressive.  The English were notorious for challenging themselves with inletting nightmares.

[Kentucky Jeff]

That's something two english gunsmiths made as a bet.  "I'll bet you a pint of ale you can't inlet this...." 

[sz]

Gents, it's not as hard as it looks.
The trick is to take a bit of time and file a good draft to the sides of the 'return"
Then inlet it straight forward until you have a perfect fit.  Next, go straight down
You'd think it's a nightmare, but it's really not.

[Mike Brooks]

I've done several of these. They go straight down from the top, there are no other options. From there on out tweak the back side of the buttplate with some clever bending and a little peaning.  Not as easy as a standard fowler buttplate, but not impossible to do. Just time consuming is all.

[don getz]

Ross....while you are over there in the UK looking at all of those great british gun, take note, you probably won't see one
left handed in the bunch.  Isn't that strange, you rarely, if ever, see a left handed Kentucky either......Don

[Acer Saccharum]

File that finial carefully before you start to inlet it. If it has to go straight down, then file an even draft all around the contours. I would estimate around 5 degrees.

If the plate goes down and forward at the same time, file the draft with a slight forward tilt to it, where the leading edges would be more vertical, and the trailing edges have more draft.



Or cut all that frilly stuff off to make it a plain return. 

[Blacktail]

For anyone who might be interested, you can get the stock with the butt plate not inletted. This would allow you to simplify (ie cut and file away the scary parts) the plate so as to make the inlet easier. The only problem is that you'll be waiting on your stock longer, say 8 weeks plus.

This gun is going to be my next build. I was initially scared of the butt and sideplate, but after speaking with Barbie, I found out these nasties can be done away with easy enough! This works for me since I want the gun as a hunting rifle and it doesn't have to be so fancy for my purposes.

[RossN]

Weeell. Ii had hoped  to use the rifle for spring deerstalking (November or thereabouts here), but looking at that buttplate I think maybe I had better hold off retiring the current rifles, just in case.....
I have just read Bakers book and in it he mentions shooting a water buffalo with a handfull of small change in what seemed to be a small emergence. If he had something like that on the end of his rifle I would imagine using it as a club/mace would have been entirely practical.

[Darrin McDonal]

Yep! That puppy will take a few hours. I built my first one of these as my second gun I ever built and it was the first one from a blank stock and I remember thinking to myself a number of times that I think I may have bit off more than I can chew for this early of a project, but how else do you learn. Dive in. Sharp tools and dont use any transfer color that will bleed into the fibers or else you may get false reading and then remove something you didn't mean to. Luckily I had a very good teacher looking over my shoulder (Jim Chambers)and giving much needed advice when my mind went blank for the best way to do it.
 The side plate will challenge you too if its a first of the sort.
Darrin

[Gene Carrell]

Thanks for all the response. I think that I will pass on the single malt (at least until finished). It sounds as if the consensus is to inlet the butt to the stock, then straight down. I am using iron (steel) so I don't know how much peening and bending will take place, but I'll sharpen my tools and have a go.
Thanks,