No 4 - butt plate screw hole is stripped. Need suggestions on a a fix

Bolivar

Bolivar

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Hello

I'm working on a No. 4 Lee Enfield. The top butt plate screw hole is stripped. The screw just drops in to the bottom of the hole and won't bite at all.

I'm looking for suggestions on how to fix this so I can properly attach the butt plate and not have to worry about the screw going for a walk. (The bottom hole still has "bite" but I would prefer to have the plate attached with both screws like it was intended in the first place)

Maybe fill the hole with glass bedding material and then re-drill so I can tap the wood screw back in?

Thanks
 
if you have access to a wood plug cutter, make a plug from oak or similar hardwood. drill out the stripped screw hole with same diameter drill bit, clean out, epoxy/glue the plug in, let dry. when dry, accurately mark, then redrill the actual screw pilot hole. shape the top of the plug if necessary, and reinstall butt place. or do what you said.
 
...ditto the previous 2...if using straight epoxy let it dry thoroughly (several days) until it cannot be dented, and many times straight epoxy will fatigue with repeated insertion of the screw...using a scissors to cut short, independent strands of fibreglass and mixing that with the epoxy will do a better job though
 
Or you can coat the screw and butt plate with wax , fill the hole with epoxy thickened with a high strength filler, and bed the screw in place. This is a very high strength technique and makes the screw hole a perfect fit to the individual screw used. After bedding the screw this way, I like to disassemble, strip the wax and refit the screw with a dab of silicone, which acts like a low rent sort of nylock fastener to prevent the screw from undoing itself.

See chaper 14, page 129 in ht tp://www.westsystem.com/ss/assets/HowTo-Publications/GougeonBook%20061205.pdf for a more complete discussion of the technique and explicit instructions. This book is about boatbuilding, but the fastening of hardware is the same concept.
 
A piece of ready-made hardwood dowel will work fine. It seems counter-intuitive to drive a screw into end-grain, but that is the orientation of the grain in the stock after all. I have done this repair a few times and it works well. You definitely need to drill the clearance for the screw shank afterwards though, or risk cracking the stock.
 
even easier than a plug, wood glue and tooth picks, fill the hole with tooth picks soaked in wood glue, let dry, trim, drill pilot hole, re-install butt plate with screw.
 
Just to nit pick, a 'plug' is cut with the grain at 90* to the axis of the plug, and a 'dowel' is cut with the grain in line with the axis of the dowel. Plugs are cut this way to make it easier to trim them to length after installing, and are mostly designed to be decorative or non obvious hole fillers. Dowels are made this way for greater strength, which is why they are used to join pieces of wood in cabinetmaking. If you use a plug, the short bits of wood grain have little strength and will strip out easily, while the longer grain in a dowel will do a better job of holding the screw. While people often use the terms interchangeably, they are very different in use.

If you use wood, go with a dowel for longer term viability of the repair.
 
Bolivar said:
Maybe fill the hole with glass bedding material and then re-drill so I can tap the wood screw back in?
Click to expand...

As noted, the "correct" fix by woodworking standards is to drill out the hole, glue in a dowel and then re-drill the hole in the dowel. That said, I have fixed stripped holes as you describe, but just using regular yellow carpenters glue and some wax on the screw. Put the glue in the hole, run the screw in and then leave it to dry. Then turn the screw out and you have a nicely filled hole that is a perfect match for the screw threads. Butt plate screws don't see much load unless you typically slam your rifle into hard things butt first, so this works fine with a bit of care when tightening the screw after the repair. The recoil pad on my shorty 870 is held on with this repair and it has been fine for a couple of years so far.


Mark
 
Easiest thing to do is fill the hole with epoxy(use a needle style applicator), let it dry for 24 hours an drill a new hole. The epoxy doesn't need anything mixed in as the hole is under the butt plate. A bit of saw dust won't hurt though.
 
If it's a sporter, go with any of the easy ways given here. If it's still in original configuration, do it properly by drilling out the old hole, glueing in a dowell, then drilling a new hole for the wood screw.
 
The bubba'd No.1 I have had a small piece of lead solder folded into a V and placed into the hole. It held firmly until I decided to remove the butt plate, in a pinch it would work again but best to go with the dowel method described above.
 
I fixed manys stripped holes in my milsurps stock with dowel method, imao its the way to go. I have pre cut hardwood dowels,the kind used to assemble furniture. About 1.5 inch long and available in various size to meet any situation. Drill,glue the dowel and drill screw pilot hole.

Joce
 
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