Oh Weighty Technoid;

Do you have a list, or know where I could get a list of recoil pad weights. None of the manufacturers will admit the weights of their products. I checked several web site and tried to call several customer service phone #’s but the reps I talked to either think this is classified info or no one else has ever asked.

I had a shotgun fitting and this led to a length of pull correction, which led to a change in the balance. I shot this gun for 2 years and maybe it was never right but it was all mine. Now its right but not the same!

Will a pad make that much difference in the balance of a gun. I’m sure some of your Olympic caliber students would notice but I’m just a weekend hacker.

PS. My wife’s cousin Robert (Too Many Guns?) thanks you for the answer. I had shown him the Shotgun Report Web site and he borrowed my E-mail address to ask you that question. They don’t have a computer. So when he showed his wife that the question was important enough to be published on the Internet she had no choice but to concede to your wisdom, that it really is necessary to have so many guns and to cancel the yard sale. Damn I missed out on some real bargains there, but I gained a well heeled shooting partner.

Thanks
Bob

Dear Bob,

You know, I weighed all the different pads on my electronic scale, but never wrote it all down. The problem is that the uncut pad is far larger and weighs more than the pad does when cut, so weighing everything now isn’t going to help.

My memory is pretty good though, so you can take this as more or less absolute truth, sort of.

Heaviest pad is the Kickeez because it is solid Sorbothane. Next come the Pachmayr Decelerator types- they have egg crate interiors that cut the weight somewhat. The lightest pad that I have tried is the Terminator. It is solid, but made of a “foamed” substance with a lot of air in it.

One of the big contributors to weight are the solid hard rubber spacers used to lengthen the stock. They can weigh a ton. The 100 Straight Company- the guys who make the Terminator pad- also make light weight spacers that weigh about half what the old hard rubber ones.

Nothing is prefect though. The Terminator and light weight spacers do not fill in very well after finishing due to the tiny air pockets. The ground sides of the spacers always look dull. Perhaps there is some kind of thick varnish that you can use to cover them, but they wouldn’t look too hot on a really nice gun. Note that you can skeletonize the hard rubber spacers to take some weight out.

A pad and a couple of spacers added to a stock that doesn’t have to be cut too much can add up to six ounces of weight back there. This is an entire ton and will definitely change the balance of the gun to the rear. Trap and skeet shooters won’t notice it because they shoot a mounted gun, but a hunter or sporting clays shooter certainly will. A terminator and light spacers will save you a couple of ounces over a Kickeez with hard rubber spacers. A Decelerator can save about an ounce over a Kickeez, but it all depends on which pad thickness you are using.

The best way to save weight is to use the thinnest Terminator pad that they make and stack up skeletonized light weight spacers. I can’t believe that an instructor gave you a fitting, recommended increasing your length of pull and didn’t comment on the potential balance change that a pad and spacers would cause. That really should have been addressed.

Best regards,

Bruce Buck
Shotgun Report’s Technoid