I think this is an appropriate place to post this, let me know if somewhere else makes more sense. I know that for only 10 bucks you can buy a plastic cover for the hook area on a KRG Bravo, but I wanted something a little more rigid and, as a natural consequence, heavier. So I grabbed a piece of 1/4" flat bar scrap I had laying around that was painted a vanilla white color previously. Also grabbed my micrometer and went to work at the mill. It's not pretty paint wise, but I will re-paint it eventually. If I had it to do over I would start with a 3/16" piece of flat bar as it doesn't sit down quite flush with the butt of the stock, but all in all it will serve it's purpose and fits all other dimensions very well.
To accomplish the curve portion I simply took some measurements on where the bend started and ended and clamped the piece in a vice and used a hammer to make small bends at various points along that radius. There is probably a more precise way to do this but I couldn't think of it and it got it close enough, although there is a very slight twist in it as a result. If you look at the picture where the plate is installed in the stock, look towards the front of the rifle on the plate, you can see where I used the mill to take the sharp edge off of the plate that there is definitely an angle to that cut.
On the side of the plate that faces into the stock, I drilled a 7/16" hole 200 thousandths deep using a regular twist bit (leaving 50 thousandths for the screw head to rest against on the other side), and then ran a square nose end mill down the same hole to square the bottom of it. This fits very nicely over the stud sticking up from within the stock where the screw threads into. Then in the center of that I drilled a 3/16" hole for the screw itself to drop into. I wobbled this hole out just a tad as the screw is about 5 thousandths diameter more than 3/16".
When it was all said and done the cover itself only ended up at 1/4 lb. but that's probably close to 1/4 pound more than the plastic one is. Additionally it offers the rigidity I was looking for to be able to fill in the voids in the Bravo with various weights and ensure they could be sufficiently clamped in the stock. Between the weights I added under the cover, and the cover itself I added a full pound to the back of my rifle. Was a fun little project, hopefully some of you will find it useful.
To accomplish the curve portion I simply took some measurements on where the bend started and ended and clamped the piece in a vice and used a hammer to make small bends at various points along that radius. There is probably a more precise way to do this but I couldn't think of it and it got it close enough, although there is a very slight twist in it as a result. If you look at the picture where the plate is installed in the stock, look towards the front of the rifle on the plate, you can see where I used the mill to take the sharp edge off of the plate that there is definitely an angle to that cut.
On the side of the plate that faces into the stock, I drilled a 7/16" hole 200 thousandths deep using a regular twist bit (leaving 50 thousandths for the screw head to rest against on the other side), and then ran a square nose end mill down the same hole to square the bottom of it. This fits very nicely over the stud sticking up from within the stock where the screw threads into. Then in the center of that I drilled a 3/16" hole for the screw itself to drop into. I wobbled this hole out just a tad as the screw is about 5 thousandths diameter more than 3/16".
When it was all said and done the cover itself only ended up at 1/4 lb. but that's probably close to 1/4 pound more than the plastic one is. Additionally it offers the rigidity I was looking for to be able to fill in the voids in the Bravo with various weights and ensure they could be sufficiently clamped in the stock. Between the weights I added under the cover, and the cover itself I added a full pound to the back of my rifle. Was a fun little project, hopefully some of you will find it useful.
