Musket buttplate with no top extension screw

[rich pierce]

Sometimes original muskets and fowling pieces have an elongated top extension but no screw holding it down. I have done this by pinning through the buttstock and through a tab on the underside of the top buttplate extension.  On my current project, a Fainot fowling piece, I needed to use another technique because there is no sign of a through and through pin on Fainot fowling pieces.  This technique can only work when the top extension can be slid forward. Not for complex shapes that do not taper forward.

Here is the Reeves Goehring buttplate with the tab cast in place already.  You can see I filed a slot in the tab.  This engages a square nail driven into the tab inlet in the top extension inlet. As the top extension is driven forward, the tab pulls the extension down because the slot is slanted.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Nice work Rich.  I have used that system several times always with good results.  Nice piece of walnut!

[rich pierce]

Taylor, this is the most dense piece of American walnut I've ever handled. Of course most dense down at the butt in the stump wood. 

[smylee grouch]

I have used that type of system also but I used a wood screw instead of a nail. Seems to be holding ok after about 15 years on the first one.