Bent my Repro...and an original Parker too.

[Chuck Heald]

I finally finished my stock bending fixture last week.

Another member here needed a Parker stock bent up and I needed to bend the Parker Repro 28g/.410 down.

So we got together for a little stock bending party today.

Here's the basic setup. We did the original Parker first. Triggerguard was removed. The gun had 3 1/4" of drop at the heel!



Once the gun was delicately clamped in the fixture, the wrist was wrapped with cotton rags and soaked in oil. It was continuously dowsed in oil at the wrist and foil protected what was not covered by the rags.



The first bend was fully a 1/2" after cooling and released. Very little springback. The gun had 2 3/4" drop at the heel now. We were so thrilled we didn't break the stock. The upper tang did look like it was digging into the stock a bit and we disassembled the gun and cleared the wood a bit to relieve the pressure. We then decided another 1/4" was necessary. So, back in the fixture the gun went and we did another round on it. We also took out any cast and brought it to zero cast. Once cooled and released we were at 2 1/2" exactly. Fully 3/4" of bend in two bends! No cracks.


Next, my Repro was up. It's a straight grip stock.

In the fixture, clamped up.


I bent the stock 1/4" at the heel, down.

A friend had bent it down about 3/8" a year ago, but it came back to about 1/4" bend. It was still too high for me and I had shot it for over a year and still missed high consistantly unless I buried my cheek unnaturally. With the new drop, it feels very much like guns I shoot well. I might shoot it tomorrow to verify.

I'm pretty thrilled to have bent these two guns successfully.