The goal is to have the gun fit properly and actually be able to hit a target...



I just received this one back from Mr. T (crossedchisels) and Steve Dalzell. Steve does most of the work now, I think. They co-authored a nice piece in last month's SSM.


[

A few months ago I asked a few members their preferred butstock extension material, and horn was the overwhelming choice! I let the stockers talk me into Ebony and I am pleased with the result. A " holowectomy" kept the weight at 6-12 and the balance on the hinge with the 28's.



Did the best I could with the lighting I have.

As extensions go, that one is very, very nice.

Interesting that the pores are not filled-is that by choice?

Mike

Quite nice.
I've always preferred a dark ebony like extension or suitable pad to attempts to blend similar wood to the original. I've yet to see one of the latter that works in my opinion.
Jeremy

Thank you for sharing
Nice touch on making the gun useful to you!!
Mike

Ebony is an excellent choice for that task. They did a great job and I like how it looks.

Looks nice.



I was also kinda surprised to see the little pin holes where the ebony meets the wood in the second photo.

Either Mr. Chizzle needs another power in his magnifier or you need to back off on the quality of your photos.....just saying.

Not a desecration if you couldn't shoot it otherwise. A desecration would be not shooting it. Pretty wood and nice fit. What gun? Gil

They look pretty darn filled to me.

Beautiful, but it will slip and slide on your shoulder even with the checkering, which will wear quickly. I think a pad would have been a better choice.
JR

Some sharp eyes out there. I'm not too worried about the pores. The gun is a well used DMB O/U 12 bore with a number of nicks, scratches, dents, etc. One of the challenges with altering these guns is what I understand to be an inability to bend the wood much due to the trigger plate mechanism. So the stockers had to sharpen their pencils to compensate for some dimensions they couldn't alter. They were concerned that the result would not be aesthetically pleasing, but my instructions were to prioritize fit over aesthetics. I'm happy and most importantly the gun fits great.

How thick is that extension? I have a stock I want to add 1-3/8 inches to the LOP and I am trying to get an idea of how a horn or ebony extension of that length would look.

Thanks.

That's 2 DMB's we know you have. Some people have all the good guns/luck. <g> Gil

I had David Trevallion do an ebony extension on a Holland #3 for me several years ago. It was about 1 3/8" and although the quality of the work was very good, the thing was rather unsightly. I think you may well be disappointed with an ebony (or horn) extension anything more than 1" in thickness. Just my humble opinion, but the less the better in terms of thickness.

The original LOP was 14 3/4 and the finished LOP is 15 3/8. I have a gun with an ebony extension >1" and I will see if I can post a pic unless someone beats me to it. I don't like the looks of any extension >1" but prefer wood to pad/spacers for longer extensions.

Mr Owen, I like the look of the ebony extension very much - pores and all. I personally hate working with horn, the shop smells like burning finger nails for a week after with the added benefit of attracting worms down the road.

I do have a couple of questions. How is the extension attached - glued or screwed? The extension looks much longer than 5/8" is that true? I personally like leather covered pads, is there a reason why you chose this route instead of a leathered covered pad?

Doug

Ebony is dense as heck and should wear like steel. I added an 1/2" extension years ago to a gun I had but instead of running the grain long wise I ran it the same direction of the stock. That was a mistake. That meant I had to work the end grain of both sides of the extension, the stock side and the side which fit against my shoulder. I did not want to trim the factory stock and loose the slight curvature it had and that made fitting it a pain in the butt. It took for ever to cut that end grain. It looked really good when I got done but it took me thirty hours at least to complete it.

Then checkering ebony is no fun either and end grain ebony is worse. I ended up buying and using an electric checkering system. You had to cut every groove to almost full depth, one line at a time. It took four passes with the machine and then a couple hand passes by hand, when done, to even everything up. That was the last ebony extension I ever did but if I had a gun which needs one I would do it again but not cross grain wise. Live and learn as they say.

Extension looks very nice. The reason I always suggest the use of ebonite in place of ebony is that everything ebony I own...is cracked or has started to crack. Ebonite can be easily checkered or grooved. Horn is beautiful, but sucks in the long run and I don't know anybody who enjoys working horn.
Anyway, the extension is classy and looks up to the quality of the gun, thumbs up.

Ebony is a great traditional material, but this I would keep in mind as a real possibility. It's not all created equal.

I don't do the work myself so I'm not quite as bothered by the smell of horn. LOL But having had a couple done, why do you say it sucks in the long run. And how long a run do you mean. 10 years or 80 years.

Worms. Shrinks. Cracks/delaminates. Changes colors over time, sometimes becomes semi-transparent. Very difficult to work. Horrible to checker. Stinks. Expensive.
With all that said....when it's done right, it's beautiful when finished. As for time...I'll admit I have no good answer. I have 100+ year old guns that have all the symptoms I've described....I have 40 year old guns with some of the listed symptoms. Nothing specific to offer, sorry.

Friends:

I passed the thread along to Steve (he doesn't really get into this internet stuff) and he is quite grateful for the attention and especially the praise. He asked me to pass along to you that "... that one's all mine, David T didn't even see the gun .... If you can post on this site I'd appreciate if you could let the audience know that - being as English as I still am, I don't feel it appropriate to do it myself!"

I am proud to count Steve as a friend. For those of you who haven't gotten to know him, you should. He's a hell of a great guy. And a good wood man and doublegunsmith, too.

I agree that is a beautiful butt stock but disagree about the desecration. That looks great.

The stock looks great. Wood seems to outlast bone.

125 year old wood:



125 year old bone (top layer looks like chalky fingernails):

Bone or horn?

Looks like horn

SRH

Horn, misspoke...you guys pay attention!

Red pad looks better than the horn extension. Works better too.
JR

That's a matter of opinion, personally I prefer the look of the horn or the ebony over a red pad. I have had a number of guns over the years both with & without pads, some of them red. However with loads appropriate for the weight of the gun I never really felt the need of a pad.
One of the "Hardest Kickers" I ever had was one with a pad that was totally TOO Soft. It was about like holding it off your shoulder & giving it a running start. I had to replace it with a firmer pad to make it comfortable to shoot.

The ebony extension looks very nice, and I hope you shoot it "lights out"! It looks way better than a mismatched piece of walnut added to lengthen it. I would have used a Silvers type pad, myself, but I'm just partial to recoil pads. I use guns pretty hard, setting them down in all kinds of places that are not conducive to keeping a checkered butt looking nice ...... wooden racks on the range and duck blinds, for instance. I've got a couple with finished wood butts, but put a leather lace-on pad over them when in use.

The important thing is at you got it to the length you need. Very nice.

SRH

I MUCH prefer a checkered finish on the buttstock, to a pad, of any sort. The pad won't look better than horn or ebony in 125 years, either, but, that is the price you pay.
Craig, wise man that he is, hit the nail dramatically on the head-it takes someone with training and experience to decide if a piece of ebony is up to being tough enough for use as a buttplate, or, better suited for use as inlay material. The guys who went to gun fixing school in Europe seem to have an edge in that area, in my limited experience.

Very recently fitted checkered ebony buttplate.



As mentioned above, I, too, prefer them fitted on the curve. It seems much more asthetically pleasing than a straight line fitment.



If you have the option, just checkering the wood of the butt is a beautiful finish treatment. The wood on this R10 Darne was checkered over 20 years ago, and, truth be told, hasn't worn much for the amount of use it has seen.
Again, the wood in this case is a fabulous piece of native French walnut, selected by the stocker, for the use the customer intended. It is exceptionally hard, and dense. I was actually happier when the checkering wore a bit, it was quite aggressive to shoulder and shoot, when it was new.
I find the selection of clothing you will be using while shooting to be much more significant to how much the gun will "slide around" than the finish treatment to the butt. I have a beautiful silk T-shirt, that was a gift from my Mother, that, I can assure you, will never be used for shooting, again. The best for me is a regular, Pendleton wool shirt, or, a cotton work shirt:



Hollowing the buttstock is a good way to change the balance to where it needs to be. But, there are other ways to do this:



Some ebony is hard, and dense enough, to be used to accomplish the same thing as hollowing. You just put the piece in the front of the forend, and finish it up beautifully. Unlike Dustin, I can't say I've had a bad piece of ebony, but, all I've ever owned was fitted by European gunsmiths, some who did that work almost every day.

I've had plenty of worm eaten horn, however. The 125 year old piece, posted above, seems to be from a worm free part of the world, and could be dramatically improved with the fine hand polish sold by Griot's Garage, and an aggresive nylon brush, followed by a light recut of the checkering.

The worst treatment to a buttstock I ever owned was an old, leather covered, pad. I suspect some idiot smeared armor-all on it at one point in time, and it was never the same, but, don't know that for fact. It was slick. I got rid of the gun for other reasons, but, the pad didn't help.



Best,
Ted

Doug M. I just posed your questions to Steve and here is his response:

The extension, which is just about an inch thick, is epoxied in place. Exact technique and glue is a trade secret, but it is not Acraglass. You might add that horn, the obvious alternative, this thick is very hard to find, very expensive, HORRIBLE to work, and very difficult to lighten to get the balance right.

I agree with Stan, if a gun is used a lot, it needs a pad or thin rubber plate. If you ever had one slide down in a blind, you would understand. On the other hand, if they are not used, a horn/steel/or checkered butt look very nice.
Mike

Pit blinds and duck boats almost always have some water in the bottom of them, in my experience. A 3/4" to 1" recoil pad keeps the water off the wood as well as helps prevent it from sliding. I understand that many posters here hunt grouse, or other upland birds that do not require the rough use of doubles that mine receive. Understand, I do not neglect my guns, nor abuse them ......but, I do not pamper them either. They get dings and scratches. Duck hunting with doubles is a paradox.You know, going in, that your guns are going to get used hard and roughed up. You try to protect them the best you can, but you know that, if that double could speak, it would tell you that it is much happier being used .....even used up ...... than sitting in a rack.

I like the looks of a nicely checkered butt, or one with heel and toe plates and horizontal grooves cut in the wood between them, like my Hollis. But, my opportunities for hunting with a gun that nice are few and far between, unfortunately. I'm much more likely to be drifting some creek or river in my "kayak", getting muddy water and mud all over my gun, than I am cradling it in my arms as I follow a grouse dog around. Thus, my preferences. Fortunately for the rest of the world, they are only mine.

SRH

This is the last gun I own that was in a blind, of any sort:



I did not bring it to the blind. It went to Canada, with a rather strapping young man, who had recently completed his hunter safety training, and had been invited there by a relative. Said young man had a wonderful time and trip that there is no way his single Mother parent could have provided. The gun and ammunition for the trip were on me.
The gun was used for duck and goose hunting. It slept in the duckboat, or, on a nail pounded into the exterior of the cabin if it was raining or snowing.
For those that question how it worked, know this-the trigger group was tuned by a Marine Corps amourer, and it wears a fixed modified choke replacement barrel, and a Wolf Creek powdered metal safety. The amourer told me that when the chips are down, it would be tough to find something better to trust to work. Not sure I'll ever be in a place where the chips might be down enough to contemplate that, but, hey, the gun works really, really well.

I don't doubt him. Kid had the time of his life, by the way.

The gun with the recently fitted ebony buttplate in the photos above is a V19 Darne in 28 gauge. There MIGHT be an individual out there who believes it should be used in a duck blind in Canada, but, I am not that guy. It has different uses, for a bunch of different reasons, that I'll not get into, here, but, I will say I try to use it in a manor it is best suited for. It wouldn't be in a blind, anywhere, while I own it.

I have guns I could use in a duck boat. But, I don't fit them with ebony, horn, or leather covered pads. I'm not wealthy enough for that. One of my failings as a human is, I like things to work to the max, and, when we were handed steel shot in the early 1980s, and told it wouldn't work as well as lead, but, tough shit, I quit waterfowl completely. Well, that, and my Mom had a perfectly capable Irish Setter that was being left at home when Dad hunted ducks, but, I digress.

I have less money into the blind use pump gun, than I have into the checkered ebony buttplate for the Darne.


Best,
Ted

Had a great day afield with the DMB and EC Green today, 32 brace fell to the duo. Fit was perfect and the gun functioned flawlessly with RST 1 oz loads. My friend captured what I believe to be a MOI photo of a hen. Look closely in the upper right hand corner...