doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com What's in your butt?

In a friends Nitro Special I found a note that he had written as a ten year old expressing his delight at getting a gun. He had forgotten the note completely. We copied the note and put it back.
In another friends Model 8 Remington we found his grandfather had put a spare set of sights, spare firing pin and spring and his name and address. His grandfather hunted deer and bear in Maine.
I ALWAYS look under the buttplate.

Back in the 1990's I purchased a higher grade Tobin with 32" Krupp barrels and single trigger from a Charlotte, NC dealer. While examining the gun, I removed the buttplate to discover an old oily slip of paper that contained the original owners name and address there in Charlotte; along with the address was this criptic message "If you are in possession of this gun, it is stolen". The dealer assured me that the gun was acquired legitimately, so I never attempted to contact anyone at the noted address; and passed the note along with the gun when it was sold later.

During this year's Southern Side x Side, Dr. Bill McPhail purchased an early LC Smith Quality 2 10-bore hammer with fabulous stock wood; then insisted that I take the gun home and store it in my safe! While cleaning the gun I removed the butt plate to check the stock for originality (to see if the butt had the two little half-moon shaped milled-cut cuts from the factory stock shaping machine; they were there). When the plate was removed, the area underneath was covered with white powder residue. I brushed this junk off to discover a lead plug; the makers had drilled a 3/4" hole in the butt (have no idea how deep), then filled the void with molden lead. The white powder was the result of oxidization from the exposed end of the lead plug.

I once found two wheel weights in the butt of an A-5, and a note with a man's name in another gun; so now, whenever I acquire a "new" gun, butt plate examination is standard procedure.

I bet it was not molten when it was poured. If it was, it would have badly burned the stock wood, possibly started a fire and for sure it would not neatly fill the hole as the wood would continue to char long after the metal had frozen. I would guess that the lead was poured into some sort of mould and then fitted into the hole in the butt. Do not try to pour lead into a wooden hole. You will not like the results and if there is moisture I can imagine it would be fairly dangerous to boot.

Brent

Brent, that was surely what I assumed and you may be correct, but Buck Hamlin tells me the makers poured this stuff in the hole; that he has seen many guns with this treatment, and that it has to be "dug" out to be removed. I've never claimed to be a gunsmith, and have no idea how this was done; but I've never caught Buck pulling my leg in the 20 plus years he's done work for me. All I can tell you for a fact is that whoever put the stuff in there did a good job, as the fit is as tight as if the wood grew around the plug. Even after 123 years it still ain't going nowhere!