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toe plate ... need advice

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greetings all!

i screwed my courage to the sticking point and plonked down my hard earned, over- taxed and God- entrusted dollars for a Kibler SMR. (not that i'm grousing about the price - it's worth every penny!)

here's the problem ...

i am considering making the toe plate from a bit of cow horn left over from another project, and putting another inlet into that (elk antler - also from another project). The stock is figured ash, and i will most likely be using tried&true for a final finish, with a coat of butchers' wax.

am i getting way out of PC/HC territory here, or is this a reasonable embellishment for the period?

Thanks for any assistance of advice :)
 
greetings all!

i screwed my courage to the sticking point and plonked down my hard earned, over- taxed and God- entrusted dollars for a Kibler SMR. (not that i'm grousing about the price - it's worth every penny!)

here's the problem ...

i am considering making the toe plate from a bit of cow horn left over from another project, and putting another inlet into that (elk antler - also from another project). The stock is figured ash, and i will most likely be using tried&true for a final finish, with a coat of butchers' wax.

am i getting way out of PC/HC territory here, or is this a reasonable embellishment for the period?

Thanks for any assistance of advice :)
I have no clue if it is PC/HC, but who cares? It is your rifle! Go for it!
Larry
 
my only thought is toe plates are usually fairly thin.. wondering if a horn plate would look kinda heavy unless thinned quite a bit?
( and then it's strength is what??? ) but it is your rifle, hard to argue you with you.. ;)

Respect Always
Metalshaper/Jonathan
 
Poor boys are made with little funky details. Like bone or antler comb piece and no butt plate.
Horn, antler bone, mother of Pearl, inlays are known on European guns.
My bet would be not seen on early guns, and produced, but looking at guns like the Joe Meek rifle we know people customized their guns. And in a life on the frontier or edge of frontier a man needing a strip of metal may well have caniblized, and later replaced a part off a gun. Such a step would make your gun yours. And absence of an historic example should not be seen as proof it was never done. I’ve contemplated making a poor boy just that way
 
I tend to go with conventional embellishments because in my mind, even though I love the gun and intend to keep it there is always the thought in the back of my mind that if I sell it down the road few of the perspective buyers will like any "off the wall" embellishments, I know I wouldn't. I have seen a variety of stuff inletted into a stock, subway tokens, coins, crosses and very bad carving that didn't appeal to me but did to the original owner/builder, these guns came up for sale and the embellishments turned me off.

I put a toeplate on my Kibler SMR, a different one from a traditional NC rifle but I liked it. Well, when finished the gun had the standard rear sight placement, the rear sight was just a blur for my 74 year old eyes, I couldn't shoot the rifle accurately and I ended up selling the gun instead of cutting another dovetail further down the barrel and repositioning the rear sight.

I did add decorative moldings to the gun as well as the toe plate, the new buyer really liked what I had done to the gun.

The toe plate;

jj6DUxl.jpg


The over all gun;

olwD8Qx.jpg
 
greetings all!

i screwed my courage to the sticking point and plonked down my hard earned, over- taxed and God- entrusted dollars for a Kibler SMR. (not that i'm grousing about the price - it's worth every penny!)

here's the problem ...

i am considering making the toe plate from a bit of cow horn left over from another project, and putting another inlet into that (elk antler -also from another project). The stock is figured ash, and i will most likely be using tried&true for a final finish, with a coat of butchers' wax.

am i getting way out of PC/HC territory here, or is this a reasonable embellishment for the period?

Thanks for any assistance of advice :)
I would do what ever I wanted to do as long as it is legal. I do think it cou;d be damaged easily .
 
There is a thick "ivory wall" (no pithy center) on the antler piece that I chose for my toe plate. I liked the "bark" of the antler so I left the plate just a little proud (thick). I may file it down flat at a later date. At first I wasn't sure if I liked it, but it is starting to grow on me. And it has been well received by everyone that has seen it in person.
The challenge for me was getting the rough surface flat enough, while being the correct thickness as to not expose wood endgrain at my dovetail.
20220510_234702.jpg
20220511_000233.jpg
 
I have added a steel tope plate on all the SMRs that I have assembled. I would not use any other material. Be aware that the wood at the end of the stock, on the bottom, where it meets the but plate , is extremely fragile. It will chip out with the slightest insult.

I also added a bean style patch box on each one. I am not crazy about the latch that is HC on the southern patch boxes. If I ever do another I'll use a better latch.
prettyclose.jpg
 
Crazy Crow sells horn slabs and cylinders. They are imported from India and ready for knife handle making. They are older and well seasoned. I don’t THINK that they would shrink.
 
Crazy Crow sells horn slabs and cylinders. They are imported from India and ready for knife handle making. They are older and well seasoned. I don’t THINK that they would shrink.
Those Indian slabs and cylinders are water buffalo. I have a kukri with a water buffalo handle that shrunk so bad I had to regrind the tang to fit flush again. Caveat emptor.
 

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