Changing the buttstock on a '42 Lithgow, have a question about the screw

I think I have the screw issue sorted out now. I figure I may as well ask one more question about the buttstock. My other, "standard" stock's buttplate is too small to cover the end of the stock perfectly. You can see that 'ledge' it leaves all the way around, especially around the top half. Plus, I don't think the screw holes match up 100%, thought I managed to get it installed.

From what I was able to determine, there is only one size of buttplate; no such thing as a "Large" version. I'm not sure how the armorers dealt with large/long stocks, but I was just thinking I'd kind of give that wood edge a bevel, or maybe a bit of a radius and call it good. It's perfectly functional in this state. Looks a little odd maybe, but after all, it's just an old army rifle.

I figure I would run this buy you good folks. I'm curious if anyone else has dealt this this situation.

From what can be seen in the photo, the plate is sitting too far down, leaving a large "ledge" at the top and little or none at the bottom. This probably means the screw holes are in the wrong place for that particular plate.

Remedy is to remove the screws, drill out the holes a bit larger, fit and glue hardwood dowels in them, finish off flush, mark new screw locations that will center the plate (with uniform "ledge" - up/down and left/right), drill new screw holes, and reinstall.

A bevel or radius would look out of place since we don't usually see such embellishments on as-issued buttstock assemblies.

Thanks. That's a good idea. Although, one has to wonder, would an armorer bother redoing the holes a mm or two away if he wouldn't bother sanding off a few sharp edges?

So I happened to have some 3/8" dowel in the garage, bought at Ace HW a while back. Some kinda hardwood. I've got that process going with the top screw hole, which I think was the most off, i.e., lower than ideal. Got a piece of dowel in the stock now and will let the wood glue dry for a day or two. Depending on how the top hole procedure goes, I may or may not even mess with the lower hole.

I think it'll turn out better this way. Thanks much.

Ugh. I cannot drill a straight hole to save my life. Not with a hand drill anyway. The hole I made is actually darned near perfect, but not quite. It's maybe over to one side a few thousandths, and a degree or two off in both axes. Curse my perfectionism. It's almost not enough to care about. I just want to start putting some BLO on this stock.

Eyeballing your pic. of the buttplate, both screws seem slightly out of position, the wear pattern on them looks like they should be swapped around.
Correctly tightened, these screws may pull the buttplate up a tad(just going on the position of the heads in the pic.) but it is normal to have a shoulder of timber exposed around the plate...........bevelling the edges would not be correct.

Armourers would always fit butt plates to the rifles so that as well as bearing evenly over the underside, there would be an even width of wood all the way around. Mind you, we had a tray of used butt plates on the shelf and we'd select the best fit and then hand fit that. With yours, I'd adjust the heel of the butt (the top bit in the photo) to suit the butt plate. No rounmded corners...., square edges please!

Does the bolt hole in the butt stock align with the trap door hole?

If it does, don't be moving any screw holes around.

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Originally Posted by Peter Laidler

Armourers would always fit butt plates to the rifles so that as well as bearing evenly over the underside, there would be an even width of wood all the way around.

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I agree, that would be ideal. Of course I only have this one buttplate to work with, so I have to make do. FWIW, below are some earlier pics that I took shortly after buying the "L" buttstock, a couple of years ago. I was trying to decide what to do about it. That upper screw hole seemed to be drilled at a slightly downward angle. I don't know if that's normal but it seemed odd to me. Mind you, this is only the second #1 stock I've examined and the first pristine, never-used example.

I did have to relieve that inlet at the top to make room for the tongue to fit. And I'm really, really sorry, but I had to do a wee bit of rounding at that edge. I don't like sharp edges on wood. Tends to snag on things and can cause splintering. I'm sure in service, these edges would round on their own anyway from extended use. But this rifle won't see that much use.

Moving on, I have the first coat of linseed oil on this stock as of yesterday. Starting to look nice. How many coats of linseed oil is typically applied? Is there a rule of thumb. Been a few years since I've re-finished a Lee-Enfield.

Till it wont suck up anymore leaving say 12 hours between coats, the factories where produced not sure about Peters base workshops they used to soak them for a long time days in warm baths of the stuff then drain them but none of use here could explain to the MFWAF why we needed 1 -2 gallons of RLO to soak a MkIII or No.4 stock in........