Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Mauser M12 extreme opinions

Here is what I found. First, don't reach for the #2 Phillips screwdriver as anyone whoever replaced a pad would be inclined to do. The machine screws that hold this pad on use a 3mm Allen wrench to remove. I recommend keeping the screw heads flush to the flat they bear against, by constantly lifting the pad, the whole time you are backing out the screws. That way you don't drag the threaded portion through the slits in the pad, which would possibly scar the pad. The screws are about 5/8" too long as is, and will be about 1" too long if you shorten the butt to the "easy" amount, (which is right at 1/2").

What look like little pillars are actually free sliding bushings that carry a raised area surrounding the screw holes under the pad, forward 1/2" to engage the little recesses around the brass inset nuts that receive the screws.


There is a raised lip on the buttstock that engages a groove that runs around the edge of the butt pad.


If you slip off the bushings you will see that there is a raised bushing fixed to the underside of the pad, where the bolts come through and they are the same size as the ring on the end of the bushings - these engage the recess around the brass bolt inserts and index the pad, so that raised lip around the edge of the butt should not be required for the pad to sit squarely on the butt.


A couple notes. The recessed empty space beneath the pad is .550" deep. The raised lip is .050" high, so if the butt is cut back exactly to the flat portion, one could reduce the LOP by .5" (other rifles might not have the exact same dimensions there since the thin, flat portion that houses the brass inserts is just epoxied in.)
If you cut it back that far, you could shorten the bolts by 1.0" and they would still fully engage all the thread in the brass inserts.

This would greatly reduce the amount of turns needed on the 3mm Allen key to tighten everything back down, reducing wear on the show face of the pad.
While it would be possible to take a bushed router bit and recut the little raised edge on the butt that engages the slot in the pad, due to the taper at the toe of the stock, the new raised lip would no longer line up correctly with the groove in the pad in the toe section of the stock. My guess is it is best to not try to do this and just regrind the pad flush as required to clean up the new junction to the butt.

I am not going to perform this operation until I am completely certain this rifle will be a keeper, so as to leave it all original. If I decide it is (which I hope I do!!) I will post all the steps here for any who want to do the same.

Cheers,
Rex