Help removing Winchester Synthetic Stock recoil pad..

[DonT]

I feel a little stupid asking this but it has me perplexed....

I just stumbled into a custom .223 rifle built on a Winchester 70 action.  It has what appears to be an earlier Winchester Stealth stock (wide, relatively flat forend that rolls into the standard width stock at about 6" if front of the receiver.  Has a funky black finsh that looks like somoene drippled black paint on it but this is acually molded (or so it seems) into the stock.  No checkering.

I have installed and removed a lot of buttpads in my day and they all had slits for the srewdriver to go into thru the back.  But I have to admit these were all wood stocks.  I have looked and studied and looked some more, tried to get a finger nail between the stock and buttpad to pry it off.  Nothing, no apparent slits on the ends allowing access to screws, no apparent hidden releases that I can find.  Can someone tell me the trick to remove this thing??

Someone hung a nice heavy, looks like a hart or shilen, SS target barrel on this thing.  Barrel is a straight 1.25 all the way to the end.  It is about 22" long and this makes it extremely front heavy with that synthic stock.  I wanted to look into the potential of putting some weight in the butt end hence the reason for removing the butt pad.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.  My hope is they didn't glue the darn pad on the these stock....

Thanks in Advance...

DonT

[saddlebum]

If you can't find slits in the face of the pad by trying to open them with your fingers it may be glued on. I've seen it happen. I have had a hard time finding the screw holes on Pachmayr pads because they disappear when done right. If your mind is made up on doing this project you can cut away at the rubber and try to find the screws. Use a saw of some kind. If turns out it's glued you can saw the thing off. I use a power hand planer clamped in a vise to shorten and square rifle butts for pads. Plastic stock won't do the blades any good but it should work fine if you take a very little bit off at a time.

[gunnut69]

If it's glued to the stock it's likely inserted into the hollow buttstock and glued in place. Usually they are screwed to small bosses molded to the butt stock at the top and bottom of the butt stock. On the softer plastic stocks I like to glue in a filler block, then screw the pad to that block. It makes later removal much simpler. If the current pad is glued in just band saw the pad off near the butt then sand flush. If weight is needed an acess hole can be drilled to allow it's i insertion. This will require a new pad most likely.. Good luck.. I've not tried it but it may be possible to drill a small hole into the butt stock and pore sand or other filler such as lead shot in. This hole is then plugged with a rubber plug available at the local hardware store..used as hole fillers...

[DonT]

Thanks for the suggestions, heard back from H&S and it is in fact one of their stocks that they made for the earlier winchesters and the butt plate is glued on.  Going to have to try cutting it off or freezing and separating it from the stock....

Again thanks for the help..

DonT