Another Dakota Model 10 Gets a Leather Pad

 This rifle also got a few other alterations.  The stock was peppered with dents (mostly from the rear sling swivel, and on the edge of the cheekpiece) and the forend was made by Dakota in what was supposed to be the style of a Frazier rifle.  Unfortunately, their interpretation of a Frazier forend looked more like the business end of the male genitalia.  The solution to that problem, it was decided, would be a spurred, ebony forend tip.  At the other end, the "factory custom" steel buttplate would be replaced with a leather-covered recoil pad, also spurred, and covered in black leather, to "bookend" the forend tip.  The base for the pad is a Silver's #3, with modifications.  Given the rifle's relatively diminutive proportions, a full-thickness Silver's pad would just look too "heavy", so the pad's thickness was reduced by separating the rubber from the rigid base, reducing the thickness of the rubber portion and then reattaching it to the base.  This method, and the reason it must be done this way, has been covered elsewhere on this blog.  Also, the #3 pad has a flat base with no spur, so the spur had to be created as well.  

Other features that the owner didn't care for were, the cross-section of the forend and the stock panels where the wood meets the frame.  The forend was a bit "chunky" and was basically a simple "U" in cross-section.  That cross-section, combined with the barrel's contour, yielded a large and unsightly shelf of wood on either side of the barrel.  He also didn't like the look of the stock panels and the absence of any matching paneling on the forend (the forend sides simply mated directly to the frame).  He wanted something that better "framed" the frame.

Here's a photo of the rifle, as delivered.  Note: this will be a "before and after", not a "step by step" because all of this has been covered elsewhere on this blog.

Here is the finished rifle.

The new forend tip, note the socket head screw.  This is Dakota factory "custom".  No need to worry about slot alignment.  The details of making and fitting the ebony tip are covered elsewhere in the Model 70 posts.

The forend alterations, now a truncated teardrop cross-section:

The new frame panels:

And finally, the pad:

Leather Covered Recoil Pads Gallery

A sampling of leather covered recoil pads I've done, showing different hides, colors and styles.

Dakota Model 10

Kangaroo hide over Silver's base

Parker Repro

Pig hide over Silver's base

 

H&H

Pig hide over Pachmayr base

 

H&H

Pig hide over Silver's base

 

H&H

Pig hide over Silver's base

 

H&H

Pig hide over modified Silver's base

 

Caesar Guerini

Pig hide over Silver's base

 

Beretta DT-10

Goat hide over Pachmayr base

 

H&H

Pig hide over Pachmayr base

Hand made 28 GA

Kangaroo hide over custom base

Custom Fox

Kangaroo hide over Silver's base

Another Dakota Model 10

Black 'roo over modified Silver's base

Fratelli Piotti Hammergun 

Pig over Silver's base

Leather Covered Pad for a Dakota Model 10

 The client wasn't thrilled with the standard, black rubber recoil pad that came on his Dakota single shot and wanted something with a bit more elegance.  The rifle sports a color case-hardened frame with no engraving, only very well-executed gold wire around each panel and is stocked in a beautiful piece of English walnut, so the black rubber Pachmayr pad was definitely the weak link in the aesthetic chain.

He did like the sharp contours of the original pad though, so I duplicated them in the leather covered version.  The pad I used as a base is a Silver's, as always.  Its firmness (that's an understatement) is useful when a covered pad with sharp edges is the goal.  The hide in this case is kangaroo, and the color is black.

Black you say?  I know, I've stated before that a client can have any color they want, as long as it's brown but, that rule doesn't apply to a custom rifle and, in this case, I believe that black complements the overall look well.

Leather Covered Pad (with a twist)

The gun is a Holland Royal and the client specified a 14 1/2 inch pull length, nothing unusual there, except that the pull length was 14 inches to the wood and he didn't want the stock cut if it could be avoided.  This meant that the pad had to be 1/2 inch thick.  The pad also would have to be of a construction that was deep enough to get screwhole plugs from, which ruled out any currently available Pachmayr and pretty much anything else.  What I needed was a half-inch thick Silver's no.3 but there is no such animal.  Well, you know what they say about necessity being the mother of invention.  I took a standard one inch Silver's and separated the red, "soft" rubber portion from the black, hard rubber base and removed the needed amount from the inside of the soft section.  I then reattached the pad and base and proceeded as usual.   Why not just shorten the pad from the back?  I'm glad you asked.  Because a Silver's has an oval pocket molded into the pad portion that is deep enough to keep that from being a workable solution.  The gun also had a pretty good example of a badly done leather covered pad, the dreaded leather covered hotdog bun.

Before:

The shortened Silver's pad:

The finished job: