Ruger 96 replacement butt plate

[jwp]

I recently bought a Ruger 96/44 (the lever action .44 Mag). Pretty nice little gun, except the butt plate sucks (in my opinion, of course). It's poorly shaped, very hard, and extremely slick. Every time I shot it, whether off-hand or from sand bags, it would slide to the right on my shoulder no matter what I was wearing, and that made it quite unpleasant to shoot. I finally found a replacement at the John Masen company (http://www.johnmasen.com/). It's part number BW07, and costs $15 plus shipping, and also works on the 10/22, Mini 14 and maybe other models. While Masen doesn't say so, it looks like it should work on the Model 99 (the .44 Mag semi-auto) as that stock's butt seems to be identical in shape to the Model 96's.

The replacement doesn't feel any softer than the original butt plate, and it's got about the same curvature (i.e., way too much in my opinion), but it does eliminate the slipping entirely. It also seems to reduce perceived recoil noticeably, though It's quite possible that's just my perception due to the elimination of slipping. In any case, the gun is much nicer to shoot now. As a bonus, it adds about an inch to the stock length (i.e., to length of pull). There's no fitting to install it; simply remove the stock butt plate and put the new one in place with the original screws.

I don't have anything to do with the John Masen company (actually bought mine through Midway)... just passing along information in hopes that it might help somebody else solve a problem.