Fox Collectors

Someone replaced the factory plastic buttplate with a recoil pad (not correct). Sterlingworth 12G serial 1062XX Philly made.

The dimensions on my uncut (14.0" LOP minus pad) stock have a screw spacing of 2 7/8". I cannot find a reproduction that has this spacing that also correlates to the overall buttplate dimensions of 4.960" x 1.715" or fractional at 4-31/32" x 1-23/32".

There are no repaired screw holes in stock. Stock numbers match, as do all numbers. Only thing not original is recoil pad. Thanks goodness "they" left it oversize and didn't touch the wood!

Just get the buttplate that fits and go with the wider spacing? I would rather not do anything "extra" to this gun. Besides the buttplate it's completely original and tight.

Not to discourage you but vintage guns can never be reverted to original unless we have the original parts that came off the gun. Also, It might be a pic illusion but it looks like the end of the butt was sanded flat or maybe even sanded a little convex to do that pad. Original Sterlies had a slightly concave butt and the buttplate surface was convex to match that curvature. Incidentally factory buttplates were made of hard rubber, not plastic. All this just sayin. frank

True about originality. I don't need to have a recoil pad vs. a plate, but a 14.5+" LOP sure feels better than a 14.25" that's for sure.

It's just an optical illusion on the pic. I can still see the center mark from the stock duplicator on the wood under the pad.

So the repro buttplates all have the curvature too? Pics they look flat.

The real mystery to me is the screw spacing vs. the offerings of the repro plates that I see.

Methinks too much emphasis is put on minor fractions plus/minus in length of pull and also in comb height. Seems like good sporting shooters can shoot most anything. If you get a chance attend one of the larger vintage SxS shoots and you’ll see good shooters smoking clays with short and low stocked double guns that will get most modern sporting clays shooters into shivers and shaking.

All the repro Fox buttplates I’m familiar are straight and must be heated/bent or sanded to match the radius of the unmodified butt.

Thanks. Since my example (buttstock) was sanded flat, that settles it. I am just going to go with a quality recoil pad. At least the stock wasn't shortened thank goodness.

Can't have everything in life!

I’d suggest you get a new-old-stock (NOS) vintage recoil pad such as a Hawkins, Jostam, Red Head, Noshoc. Personally I don’t like the Silver’s type pads because of their giganto screw hole plugs. Any of those mentioned will at least look “period”.