Wear Plates

[shifty]

 

     Is there a tutorial on makeing and fitting or just fitting a Forestock Wear Plate i have searched and can't find one. I have a precarved stock that i bought at a yard sale that was a reject i guess because the bottom of the forestock was cutt too much about 1/8" not enuff room left to drill for the ram rod hole,barrel channel is good it has not be inlett cut for a Lock would like to salvage the stock.

[Mark Elliott]

It is just a big inlay.   The only caveat is to be careful not to get the pins to fasten it, in the ramrod hole.   That can be a pain to fix.   I put a full length wear plate (trigger guard to rear thimble) to my last rife.   The owner really liked the look.   I put dozens of pins in that thing to hold it in place.   I used my cordless Dremel to drill the holes for the pins.   Otherwise, you would have to use an Archimedes drill.  The drill was a small wire gauge .002" under the diameter of the wire.  This was an iron mounted gun, and I used black iron wire from Brownells for the pins.   

I inlet the plate like any other inlay and then went about drilling through it into the forearm about 1/4"-3/8" free hand about 1/2" apart all around the perimeter of the inlay.  A very light center punch, first,  will help keep the drill bit from slipping. I then countersunk the holes in the plate with a hand countersink a couple of turns.   I then took a piece of wire an inch or so long and lightly hammered it into the hole until I felt it stop hard.  I used a 4oz ball pien hammer.   Then I took some tiny diagonal cutters and cut the wire off as close to the inlay as possible.   Then I  piened over end of the wire until it filled the countersink.   Once all the pins were in,  I filed everything off flush and polished. 

[shifty]

   Thanks Mark.

[Herb]

Here are four on rifles I built.  They are described in this Gun Building forum "Need Design ideas for wear plate" on July 12, 2008.

[Bill-52]

I used a brass wear plate on my last rifle, pinned with brass pins as Mark described.  Given the lateral curve of the wear plate, I found the inletting easier by incrementally bending the wear plate as I inlet it.  I inlet the plate along the centerline, then bent the wear plate a bit tighter to the stock, inlet it further side-to-side, bent it more, inlet more on each side, etc. This fit & bend, fit & bend process took more time but I ended up with a cleaner fit.