I have purchased 4 of the handi-rifle stock sets from Gunstocks Inc. and they are quite simple to fit to the gun, the buttstocks have the draw bolt hole bored to perfection, the buttstock will fit very nicely to the receiver when you get it, the buttstock is slightly oversized to alow for sanding so you can sand the stock where it meets the receiver to the size you want it ( some like the stock larger than the receiver as on the factory stocks while others like it the same size as the receiver ).
The forend barrel channel is very slightly undersized and can be fit to the barrel very easily with a piece of sandpaper wraped around a wooden dowel to enlarge the barrel channel. once the barrel channel is enlarged to fit the barrel the forend will fit right on, they have the attaching screw hole bored in the forend, after you have fit the forend to the barrel the way you want it you can install the plastic forend shoe onto the gun and then install the forend, they make the forends to fit the thinnest forend shoes and since there seems to be 3 or 4 thickneses of the shoes available you might have to sand some on the rear of the forend to accomadate the shoe you have, once the forend shoe and forend is installed on the gun use a ballpoint pen to draw a line around the forend shoe onto the rear of the forend, remove the forend and san the out side until you have removed the line that was drawn on the rear of the forend, then install the forend back onto the gun to check the fit tothe shoe and do any final tweaking, I then remove the forend and put a small dab of 5-minute 2-part epoxy on the front of the forend shoe and install the forend onto the gun, I let the glue setup and then carefully remove the forend with the shoe glued to it, you can then drill the pilot holes for the screws that will attach the shoe to the forend, install the screws and your done, after I have screwed the shoe to the forend I remove the screws and then tap the shoe loose from the forend as the glue will not stick the plastic shoe to the forend to solid, the epoxy also acts as a glassbeding for the shoe so it will fit perfect, I then screw the shoe back on the forend and install it on the gun to check the fit of everything, actually the shoe does not even need to be attached to the forend as the only purpose of the shoe is to keep the barrel from falling off the gun when it is opened, if you do not attach the shoe to the forend with screws you must be carefull and not lose it when you remove the forend from the gun, in other words the shoe can fre float on the gun, the stocks are now ready to be final sanded ( they come sanded to about 80 grit and all machining marks have been removed ), after sanding is finished the finsh can be applied, i use an oil finish which I feel is the only kind of finish for a gunstock. WHEW this must sound like a time consuming ordeal but actually the whole process of fitting the stocks to the gun takes less than a couple of hours, it usually takes me less than an hour but i have done a few. probably the hardest part is getting the rear of the forend sanded to the right length so the shoe fits on the forend square and true but if you get it off a little have no fear as I stated before the epoxy acts as a glass bed and the shoe will fit perfect, a word of advise is to have the shoe fit snug against the recever, not to tight or the gun will be hard to open, if the shoe fits a little loose that is no big deal because as I said before the only function of the shoe is to keep the barel from falling off when the gun is broke open to load a shell, any break open action should lock up tight with out a forend on the gun and under no circumstanced should the forend be shimmed or adjusted to make the gun lock up tight.
One final word, I always have Gunstocks Inc. install the limbsaver pads on my stocks, they do an excellant job of installing and fitting the pads on the stock and the cost is a few bucks less than what most retailers sell just the pad for.
I'm done I think
