Fit better, hit better: a custom shotgun stock from Wenig Custom Gun Stocks

Guns Magazine, Feb, 2008 by Shep Kelly

When I retired from law enforcement, I started shooting shotguns in competition, first trapshooting then sporting clays. In trapshooting, I had always had custom stocks on my shotguns because trapshooting was a game of perfect scores and lots of money. Precise gun fit established by our English cousins centuries ago for game shooting, eliminated a variable for the trapshooter--consistent head placement on the stock.

Since the rear sight of a shotgun is the shooter's eye in a relationship to the barrel, inconsistent head placement results in inconsistently placed shotshell patterns on rapidly moving clay pigeons. Consistent head placement equals consistent sight picture resulting in more broken targets and winning.

Since sporting clays was a game to replicate upland bird hunting, I assumed a factory stock on a shotgun designed for this type of shooting would suffice. I knew the way the English fitted their bird hunter (or game shot, as they liked to be called) would think of going to the field without a properly fitted shotgun with a stock made to his/her precise dimensions. This hand fitting of a stock was not confined to just the London highbrow firms such as Holland & Holland and Purdey, but also to the hundreds of provincial gunmakers who flourished in the UK over the last 150 years.

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These English gunners wanted to maximize their chances of taking birds be they pheasant, partridge or grouse. to cause the light bulb to go on. I had a mechanically sound gun (a Beretta 391 semiauto, excellent ammunition, all the necessary shooting accessories such as glasses, vests, etc.), but the gun didn't fit me worth a hoot! Lessons from some of the leading sporting clays competitors coupled with a "gun fitting" from world-renowned English shooting instructor Chris Batha confirmed my factory shotgun stock didn't fit and wasn't even close to what I needed.

I am a bit over 6' tall with a long neck and long arms. The Beretta factory stock was designed to fit Mr. Average who was a bit shorter both in height and arm/neck length. As a result I was fitting myself to the stock instead of the other way around. And my scores suffered. Chris Batha confirmed I needed a much longer stock with a higher comb and a slight modification to the grip in order to fit--a custom stock. Fortunately, I already had experience with a stockmaker, so I called Fred Wenig of Wenig Custom Gunstocks in Lincoln, Missouri.

Fajen Connection

Nearly 30 years ago, my father called one day to tell me he had found a 1936-vintage Winchester Model 70 in .30-06, with excellent metal and bore, but a 'tired' stock. My Dad gave me that rifle and when I received it, it just begged for a classic stock, made of well-figured wood. I was living in the Midwest then and a friend suggested that I call Reinhart Fajen Stocks in Warsaw, Missouri. I made an appointment with a fellow named Fred Wenig who at the time was the operations manager for Fajen's.

Many older readers will be familiar with the Fajen name--and that of another Warsaw stockmaker--Bishop. Both companies made the bulk of semi-inletted stocks for the military rifle sporterizing craze of the 1950s and '60s. I met Fred and spent an hour or so going through wood blanks, finally choosing a well-figured blank of California Claro walnut. Two months later, I had a stunning example of a stockmaker's artistry--a classic American-style stock, oil finished and checkered by hand that to this day causes other hunters to ask who did the work. I have hunted that rifle every year since I got it and, while wearing a few dings, it gets rubbed down with linseed oil every season and still is as beautiful as the day I received it from Fajen.

Fajen purchased Bishop and later was purchased itself. After several years the new owners decided custom stockmaking wasn't a business they wanted to be in and Fajen closed. Fred Wenig and several other veterans of Fajen formed their own company and today Wenig's Custom Gunstocks is known worldwide as the stockmaker of choice for those who want to improve their shotgun shooting performance through a custom stock.

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One Day Fit

Wenig's offers a "one day service" for custom stocks. You arrive very early in the morning, select your wood and while the stock is being fitted to your shotgun, you go across the street to Winkler's restaurant (the in place in Lincoln, Missouri, population 400) and have a great breakfast of all those things bad for you--biscuits and gravy, bacon, hash browns--the wonderful list just goes on. Then you waddle back to the shop where your stock is now fitted to your shotgun and roughly sized.

Your stockmaker, in my case a 20-year veteran named Jimmy Cardwell (and usually Elbert Smith, Wenig's Vice President who started the company with Fred) will take you out to the farm where the pattern plate and clay pigeon traps await.

There you'll shoot against a non-drying-paint covered pattern board to see where your shot charge is impacting based on the stock fit and the 'stocker' will make adjustments with rasps and files until the pattern on the board is exactly where you want it in relationship to your sight picture.