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