White line spacers

GuvamintCheese

I was watching a show that referred to the white line spacers between the stock and the recoil pad as required. why would they require a white line spacer on guns?

dfletcher

For the same reason I had a lime green leisure suit and platform shoes in the 70's - cause it looked cool, or so I thought.
Actually, between the buttpad & stock it may have served the purpose of providing a stable platform for the pad. Used between a swivel stud it may keep the wood from being marred, but the white color was just for looks and overall, I think the whole set up was cosmetic.

Laredo Lefty

Thats one feature the Remington "BDL" rifles have to enhance their looks. The "ADL" models are more plain jane. Its not necessary, just looks better.

RCrosby

As near as I can figure they put the white spacers between fore-end tips, grip caps and butt pads so that when you remove them things won't align as nicely as you'd like. Only thing worse than something ugly and useless is something that's ugly, useless, and yet necessary to maintain the original (hopefully) smooth lines of the stock. Still, I have a decent collection of white spacers on a shelf that occasionally find some useful purpose. Most often I put them back in place when selling or trading a rifle. Helps to keep everything "original".

Gunslinger2005

Back in the past, adhesives didn't bond very well with certain types of wood that were more oily, like rosewood for example. For this reason, it was hard to get rosewood forearm tips and grip caps to adhere to walnut. The stock manufacturers could use different types of adhesive to make the stock blanks from which the stocks were made.

Some manufacturers, like Weatherby sometimes use a thin, lighter colored wood for the spacer. The white plastic was just a cheaper alternative. So it really is just for looks today.

bobski

gunsling....your explanation was well received and very educational.

Gunslinger2005

Thanks, Bobski! I take that as a real comlement. I always respect your opinions.

Some of those exotic woods like cocobolo and others from South America and southeast Asia are really oily, and are difficult to glue to each other, let alone some other type wood. Another thing is that they expand and contract from humidity at different rates than other types of wood. This can also cause problems.

For some types of wood, like the stuff they call Brazilian cherry, you have to use special resin adhesives or it will pretty much fall apart. FWIT.

surbat6

Gunsmiths used to make white spacers for custom stocks from bleach bottles. Just cut to near final size and take it down to the surface contour as you're sanding the stock.

JAK71454

I saw that show too and wondered the same question. But I think they said "obligatory" which means it is so commonplace as to be a convention, fashion, or clich?. Jim