Trapdoor Rifles

OK so here we go again with newbie questions. I recently picked up a cheap cutdown 1873 Trapdoor project to build a truck gun/Carbine. Stock and barrel have been cut shorter. Barrel is right at 21" and the stock was cut well ahead of the rear band so I simply contoured the nose a bit to more resemble a proper carbine stock. Down to doing some assembly and the buttplate hangs over the wood all the way around by a good 1/8" or slightly less and even a bit more on the bottom. I tried 3 other correct Rifle buttplates (assuming this was a cut down rifle stock) and they all hang over on the edges. This is 100% not an original Carbine stock and has no hole for a cleaning rod or routed for a side mounted saddle ring. The stock does not appear to have been heavily sanded or anything like that to cause this. Do I maybe have a Cadet stock that was cut down ? Did they use a slightly smaller buttplate ? Anyone have a spare if so ? As I said this will be a totally incorrect truck gun and I do have a rifle buttplate that's not marked US and probably aftermarket that I can grind the edges down on if I have to. And Please refrain from the "Bubba" comments. It was a train wreck when I bought it and I'm just trying to make it more pleasing to the eye. Thanks

Try this. Across the plate at the widest point at the screw hole a rifle plate is 1.780 +-. Cadet is 1.600 + -. That difference will give you .090 around the edges. Give a bit for wear one way or the other. Hope this helps.

Thank you. That's a big help. Evidently I have a cut down Cadet stock