Using Bondo to position secure Butt Plate; acceptable or butcher job?

Brokennock said:

First, I'm sorry you got such a bum deal.
Second, based on this quote, I have two guesses as to who built these guns. I have a gun from one of those two and at first glance the gun looks really good. When one starts looking at how some of the metal parts are fitted it starts looking a little off. Nose cap isn't square and centered with the end of the stock, some other pieces aren't quite straight. I think some might call it, "finished in a workman-like manor." No where near as bad as your broken stocked gun though.

Good luck with this. I hope you can get it resolved.

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Thanks and yes workmanship like manner. That fraze actually has legal ramifications but not stated on the bill of sales. According to their website they walk on water. The barrel bands on this rifle too we’re not finished. All the raised parting lines are there all they did was blacken them and fit them; which fitting to the stock in this case they did a nice job. They have wedding bands so they could not be just dropped in. I’m sure the slots for the barrel were not slotted either. I’ll take the barrel off after I talk to the manufacturer tomorrow. I did notice a hairline crack at the entry pipe thimble. I’m thinking that can be due to a tight fit and stock shrinkage. Looks like I’m going to have another question for the forum on preventing crack growth. Needs some type of stress relief and repair. Again other than the bondo which is a big deal I think a lot has to do with shrinkage. The custom rifle I purchased from them after I got it; it too sat in NH for over a year and much of the brass and fitted parts especially the buttplate was no longer flush with the stock. Anyway appreciate your comments.

good luck Joe.

If a company is using bondo instead of inletting properly folks should know who it is. I see no reason to keep secrets.

Scota@4570 said:

If a company is using bondo instead of inletting properly folks should know who it is. I see no reason to keep secrets.

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I’d be interested to know too.

Okay let me think about it! For all I know they could have had a vender build it and put there name on it. I want to give them the benefit of doubt. Plus many I understand use glass to bed the barrel. I’m not happy about the bondo but if the wood never shrunk as excessively as it apparently did I would never discovered this. The rifle shoots perfectly. Really! So they did somethings right. It also is a very pretty rifle.

It appears the butt was machined and then hollowed to support the bondo which took the shape of the buttplate. I’m not defending it but I can see it being a big time saver. I guess I’m speculating on their defense; I feel terrible I have to ask them. I do though feel slighted.

This is a comment way out of left field . . . but to try to make lemonade out of lemons . . . If this is a Southern style iron mounted rifle, which I think you said, and not a plains or Hawken style, the up side, if there is one, is that you can refinish the whole thing and age it, darken it, etc, cover the mistakes, trim the butt plate as best you can and it may still look like a great rifle when you are done, as a lot of southern rifles are made to look like they are 200 years old and still considered great modern builds. After all, you said it is a great shooter, so the rest is aesthetics which can be in the eye of the beholder (As long as the architecture of the model is correct.) If that makes any sense. . .

What a bummer. Please keep us posted with the company response.

Bondo has a very distinctive chemical smell when sanded. Doesn't smell at all like sawdust.

Bondo is pink. It has no place in a gunstock. Butplates are inletted, not bedded in goo. Bondo, epoxy, whatever, it is all wrong. IF a parts vendor is commissioning a hack they need to know.

Fourteen posts by the OP not to tell us who did the work. If you have two rifles from the same manufacturer and they both have problems please tell us who they are for the benefit of the forum members.

First, WHY did you buy another gun from them if they had problems before?

Second, you should have called them FIRST. By messing around with it, you have invalidated any responsibility that has.

Third, again, you should have called them FIRST before making all these bloviations here. I certainly wouldn’t have torqued there butt plate and screws. You’ve now made a hash of it.

And, you’re beating about the bush. Do you think that all this will get you further with the vendor?

I bought them both together!
The thought of calling them after owning the rifle since 2018 I figured would not be warranted! Who warrants anything for five years maybe Ford 50,000 or 5 maybe 3 years!
What got me going was the bondo.
I spoke to the vendor I’m not looking to throw them under the bus

I asked a question initially and apparently there builders that do use fillers for barrels, breaches, and buttplates in general. So that takes the bondo complaint off the table. Like I said had the butt of the stock never cracked I would have never known. The stock cracked because it shrank and the diminished dimensions added undo stress. Wood will give before steel. If they want to do anything it would be good will. I owned it almost 5 years. I will not name the manufacturer. Though I was not crazy about some of the inletting on the other as one builder mentioned even originals that were beautiful to look at when disassembled the inletting looked crude. I apologize to all for posting this!
Joe

I don't think that stock shrank 3/16", it didn't move 1/8" anywhere in any direction on the butt unless it was dripping green, there isn't enough wood there to move that far. For the whole stock like butt to nose cap I could believe 1/8" and maybe 3/16" fairly easily. Again, my opinion. If it was green or wet it would have moved more or less all together, as in the top moves toward the center and the bottom moves toward the center, sides will also move to the center. You won't get tape measure changes in an area as small as the buttplate unless the wood was fresh green when the stock was made and then dried, When you did the heat and beat on the buttplate and reshaped it you can see massive changes in length, like inletting a tang and bending as you let it down, the initial 'end' is a long way from the final end of the inlet and that is a pretty minor curvature compared to a buttplate like the one in your pictures. It will actually shrink in length as curve is added, if you take curve out the part gets longer and fast. Did it break because it shrank? Maybe, but likely it was caused by a massive amount of tension on the screw caused by bad fit. That tension over time will break a toe off every time, the toe of these stocks are super weak to begin with, if there was some shrinkage it would just exaggerate the problem.

Exactly taking the curve out of the stock made the buttplate longer; isn’t that what is shown in pictures. I agree with everything you say other than the buttplate was not beaten or bent. Thanks for your insight.

What it took was 3/16 of wood removal at the toe to get the buttplate to fit tension free. ( I don’t know what green wood has to do with it. It obviously was moister IMO than it should have been.)That made the buttplate grow longer in a sense ad shown and the toe plate to grow I have no idea how much the stock shrank and don’t care but it did enough over the last few years to snap the stock as the pictures show.

I find it odd that some are complaining that the o.p. has not "outed" the builder/vendor right away or yet.
Buy every time I see someone post a problem with a gun or lock that they bought and ask questions about it,,,, they get chastised for bad mouthing the source in public before talking it over with that source.

I spoke to vendor very nice very reasonable. I was satisfied with what they told me because others outside this forum using filler speeds things up and has no impact to the rifle performance. End of story there. I said originally I wanted to hear from them and see what they had to say. No threats of name dropping. No matter what they decide to do I’m good.
So for those out there interested in a possible knew rifle they now know too ask how it was assembled. The bondo did not cause the crack the shrinkage did and the tension from the buttplate.

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I asked a question initially and apparently there builders that do use fillers for barrels, breaches, and buttplates in general.

Nobody who has any right to charge money does that, they do not get a pass. It is 100% not acceptable. Bedding a butplate in bondo is not something a competent builder should ever do. That is a shortcut that is covering up laziness or incompetence.

Let me put it another way. Building rifles is an art. Painting pictures is and art. IF you commissioned and "artist" to paint a portrait and they delivered a stick figure done in crayon, you be mad. Same thing with the rifle.

Is is OK to use a skim coat of epoxy in a barrel channel or on a breech plug area? Sure. IT is probably a good idea on heavy recoiling guns. It is not a shortcut.

Agree with @Scota@4570. If you’re building your own gun and choose to use Bondo that’s your choice though not a good one in my opinion. But for a business selling “custom” muzzleloaders to do that is over the top wrong. It cannot be justified.