repair of warped floorplate

Brent Francis · 05-01-2011, 10:59 AM

I have seen several questions regarding this problem. I recently (yesterday) decided to see what I could do with a GH that I have where the dolls head on the floorplate was proud of the frame when the rest of the foorplate was flush. I had in the past hit it with rubber mallet with no effect. Yesterday I made sure that the edge of floorplate and frame were clean and well lubricated. I also made sure that the rest of the floorplate was flush and that all screws were tight. I put blue plastic painters tape on the jaws of my work vise to keep them from scratching the frame. I placed the frame in the vice so that one jaw was flat against the water table and the other jaw went across the proud dolls head on the floorplate( obviously I needed to orient the jaws so as to avoid the extractor spur. I slowly and carefully tightened the vise and as I increase pressure from vise I tightened the two floorplate screws closest to the dolls head. The dolls head was covered by the vise jaws so I removed the frame and checked how things were going a couple of times since I was scared to put too much pressure at once. Tightening the screws while the frame was still under pressure kept the frame from springing back (although I didnt experiment to see if that was necessary). Anyway it worked perfectly and didnt seem to do any damage. I would say that this was a floorplate that was damaged by improper removal
I have also seen floorplates that were warped by re case coloring and I dont know how it will work in those cases. Also keep in mind Im not a professional gunsmith and have performed this proceedure once successfully so I relate this as a personal experience and dont advocate it as a proven technique.

Brent Francis · 05-01-2011, 03:56 PM

Here are before and after pictures of the reciever notice that the dollshead is flush in the after pic. also the floorplate screwheads are more level with the floorplate. I am sure a braver and stronger man could rotate the screws the last few degrees to fully index.

Bill Murphy · 05-02-2011, 12:39 PM

How hard did you try to seat the doll's head by just turning the screws? Did tightening the screws without using the vise not do the job? By the way, congratulations.

Richard Flanders · 05-02-2011, 04:05 PM

You can put a floorplate onto an aluminum or wood block and use a plastic or leather hammer and small wood or aluminum blocks as bridges as needed, very easily bend parts of them that have been bent by improper removal. They bend very easily.

Brent Francis · 05-02-2011, 04:55 PM

Bill, I had the screws as tight as I could get them before I tried the the vise. The screw slots were a little buggered when I got the gun so maybe if the slots were cleaner I could have brought the floorplate down with the screws I dont know. the vise worked well and it was nice not to have to remove the floor plate to do it. Although I could see how if you arent careful you could really screw up

Brent Francis · 05-02-2011, 04:58 PM

Richard, How springy is the floor plate is it likely to bounce back to the way it was when I back out the screws?

Bill Murphy · 05-03-2011, 08:31 AM

It wouldn't matter to me because I would not take the gun apart as long as it was working.

Richard Flanders · 05-03-2011, 08:42 PM

Floor plates are not very 'springy' in my experience. They're very soft actually. However, If the screws are all that is keeping it from sticking up proud then it will likely spring up some when the screws are removed. I try to get them to sit in nice and flush without any screws in. You can sometimes see where they're warped by using a small steel straightedge across the bottom of the plate. Irregularities will show up pretty well