Adding weight to pardner stock

[guvnor]

I have a pardner 20 gauge.  I am a recoil wuss and I would like to add weight to the gun.  I put the gun on my digital postal scale and it weighs in at 6 pounds, 2 ounces.  I would like to get it up to 7-8 pounds if possible.  

A limbsaver slip on adds about 4 ounces, so thats a start.  I tried filling the stock bolt hole with steel BB's but it only added about another 7 ounces.  

I might try using lead shot instead...does anyone know how much weight this would add?  

Any other options?  

[Froghunter]

Guvnor,

This is a good question!  I have added #8 magnum shot to my 20 ga. TDC and it was just to balance the gun. If I had used #9 chilled shot it would have added more weight, I don't know how many more ozs it would have added, but would becuase of the lead content and it's smaller. This weekend I should do some research and weight the different shot sizes/chilled/magnum to see how much it adds. Some have used a pipe filled with melted lead/wheel weights and add it. I'm now sure if the FAQ has how much different materials add the gun or not. I like this question, It's a good one!


Froghunter

[quickdtoo]

I have a 7/8" OD steel pipe I filled with lead, it weighs about a 24oz IIRC, it's just long enough to slip in and fill the stock bolt hole. But, I'll tell ya right up front, a 16oz mercury recoil reducer works better at reducing felt recoil than the lead pipe, see the FAQs. 

Tim

[guvnor]

Just to give an update...

This time I ended up filling the stock with lead BB's (.177 cal) instead of steel.  Filled it near the top of the hole and then topped it off with a hot glue gun, let it harden, and put the butt plate back on.  Hopefully that will keep everything in place but not be too difficult to remove if I ever need to access the stock bolt in the future.  

Before weight:  6 pounds, 2.9 ounces.

After weight:  7 pounds, 6.6 ounces.  

So lead BB size shot will add about approximately 1 pound, 3.3 ounces to a wood stocked pardner model.      

Once I add the limbsaver slip on, the gun is about 7-3/4 pounds.  Hopefully this will tame the turkey loads I intend to use this gun for.  

[sachel.45]

i put a roll of nickels in mine

[preventec47]

The hollow plastic stock by Choate ( I think is the spelling )
will supposedly hold 4 or 5 pounds of lead shot if first
mixed with glue and placed in a plastic bag and then
allowed to form fit in the hollow stock.  If epoxy were used
you would have a form fit brick that might be removable
depending on the cavity shape of the stock.

[guvnor]

Well...

I decided to try for more weight.  I did have a synthetic choate stock lying around so I swapped it with the wood one.  I took off the butt pad and there is tons of room in there.  I never realized they were hollow inside until the previous poster mentioned it.  

So I took a tube sock, stuffed it down the stock and starting filling it with the steel BB's.  Stopping occasionally to pack them down.  The sock will form fit to the inside of the stock.  Once the BB's were near the top, I folded up the rest of the sock and stuffed it tight into the stock.  I had to trim the sock a bit because there was too much material to be able to stuff it all in there and get the butt pad back on.   

The synthetic stock is lighter than the wood, but the extra room inside more than makes up for it.  Once it was all together and with the limbsaver slip on attached, it weights 8.25 pounds.  Not bad!  I put on a Survivor model forend and now it looks much better too, like a proper all black turkey gun.

If I had used the lead BB's instead, the gun would probably be 10 pounds or more!  But that would have been too heavy to carry, and id start to worry about putting excessive stress on the stock or something.