I've mentioned before how impressed I was with the Limbsaver recoil pads. I'd bought a Rem 700 in .35 Whelen equipped with the "R3" pad, which I found out was a Limbsaver. I was impressed enough to get a "prefit" Limbsaver for my .50 Encore and noticed a big improvement in felt recoil, although it was a touch long vertically. So I bought another to put on my Marlin Guide Gun in .45-70.

So much for easy installation... I immediately found a big problem. It seems that the mounting holes in my stock were drilled in the wrong place. BOTH SETS!! There were two sets of holes, both drilled off-center and crooked. Since the factory pad had been ground to fit that wasn’t a huge problem for them, they just made it fit. The “prefit” pad ended up canted a good 1/8” off at top and bottom.

My solution was to drill out the existing holes and epoxy in some pieces of ¼” dowel as fillers. Of course this required a trip to a hardware store for a suitable dowel. After sanding the ends of the dowels down flush with the stock I drilled new pilot holes for the screws.

Now problem #2 pops up. The “prefit” pad doesn’t really fit. It is too short vertically and too wide horizontally. Too big isn’t a problem, I can sand it down, but how do I fix too small?? I do not want to sand the stock down.

The dimensional problems are really pretty small, maybe 1/32”, so the pad is still quite functional. It just doesn’t look finished. Since this 10 minute job ended up taking about 2.5 hours I think I’ll leave it as is for now. I believe it’s time to learn how to fit my own pads though. Dad left me a small belt sander and grinder that should do the job. My next project will be to replace a cracked plastic pad on a Win 94 with a thin rubber pad.

A skeletized steel but plate would look better on the winchester

I bought a limbsaver "pre-fit" for my Marlin 1895 a couple years ago. It did not fit so I returned it. The Limbsavers are nice pads, but at 30 below zero they turn rock hard. Of course, usually at that temp you are wearing enough clothing to absorb some of the recoil.

Mike, I’ve seen some pre-fit pads on guns over the years, can’t say I’ve seen one that fit right !!!

IMO, get a oversized pad and do it the hard way, it’ll look a lot better !!!

Rok, if it gets 30 below zero here in NC I've got bigger problems than a hard recoil pad... I suspect that any recoil pad would get pretty hard at that temperature.

Mike, look at the pad that I put on my Model 12. {Picture in the Guns post}
If you are refinishing the entire stock, it is a piece of cake to get the pad sanded exactly to the stock. You can "feather" the stock down to the pad if the pad is too small, and nobody will notice.
Otherwise, when fitting a pad to an already finished stock, I use a sharp punch to scribe the size of the stock to the back of the pad.
I have a combination disk and belt sander in my woodshop, and then custom fit the pad.
It takes time, but works well.

Eric

Thanks guys. I agree that a hand fitted pad looks a lot better and intend to go that way from now on. I think in all these years of shooting and tinkering I've only replaced 3 recoil pads, and one of those I had done by a pro.