Buttstock Width

[BillFranz]

What is a typical width of a "Golden Age" rifle at the buttplate? My Chambers pre-Revolution fowler is 2". Are later rifles similar or narrower? Building my first one from scratch.

 

The golden age lasted for 50 years and in that time butt width narrowed from 2+" to as little as 3/4" on some of the rifles. It also went from flat buttplates to a crescent moon curve on some models.

Regional styles dominated the latter years with guns from the south looking nothing like guns from the north. There is no "standard" golden age rifle. There were hundreds of makers creating hundreds of styles as their own abilities allowed and their customers required.

There are whole volumes being written on these topics even as we speak.

:m2c:

 

[tg]

You may want to narrow it down to a particular builder or school and follow that trend as stated there were many variables during the Goldem Age....some builders still made guns in the old style, we usually speak in generalities when talking of the differences of early and later guns.

 

[Herb]

Track of Wolf's catalog shows full sized butt plates. Many of the Golden Age buttplates are 1 3/8 to 1 1/2 or 1 5/8 inches wide. The earlier the wider and the later (such as plains rifles) were narrower. Depends on the school or style. Peter Alexander's book "The Gunsmith of Grenville County" (see Track's web site) has 19 measurements of eight original longrifles, including butt width. One of these, a Peter Resor smoothbore, had a 1 5/16 butt plate. You need this book if you are building from scratch.

 

[LSU TIGER]

It can also vary with region in the same period. Berks County, for example, tended to retain the wider, early butt plates much later than other schools.