Michael,

Do use a shotgun type if your are going to be shooting it benchrest. A couple of my Schuetzen rifles that I shoot from the bench have the prong type buttplate and are a pain. I have a leather cover for the top prong when shooting from the bench but it's not perfect. Are you sold on the 44 1/2? I have one rifle built on one a .22 but not my favorite action because of the difficulty of cleaning from the breech and the firing pin problems.

MP Sadly Deceased as of 2/17/2014