Leather pad/butt plate?

[Ray-Vigo]

I've been asking around about this one--

Does anyone know if the use of a plain leather pad/strip was at all used as an addition to a brass butt plate? Perhaps to soften the the shoulder-to-stock butt contact or even as a substitute for brass? I've heard people talk about "leather butt plates" but never seen a period account of them, though they do seem like a feasible thing for a "poor boy" or for a hunter who wanted something different than shoulder-to brass.

[northmn]

Leather and especially raw hide used to be used for a lot things.  A few gun wrists were repaired with raw hide, especially by natives.  As to documentation of their use as buttplates, I would like to know also.

DP

[490roundball]

The only leather "buttplates" I am familiar with were on later British shotguns,  Maybe late percussion but certainly early breechloader.  They are actually thin recoil pads covered in very thin Goat or pig skin.  I have done one - they are a lot of work to get them to come out neat.

As a common feature from high end gun houses such as Purdey and H&H - "poor boy" is not a term that come to mind.

[Acer Saccharum]

You could also use a recoil shoulder pad if the recoil bothers you. I don't recall ever seeing anything like that on a longrifle.

Tom

[T*O*F]

A decade or more ago, one of the "Brads" made several poorboys with alternate buttplate materials.  One of two them were leather and were nailed on.  Leather can be hardened by baking and will take a very high polish if buffed, making it almost as tough as brass.  I saw one at his booth at the Effingham gun show in southern IL back then.

[Roger Fisher]

Another reason for a rough layer of leather (suede) glued to the butt plate is to help prevent the thing from sliding up and down against your shoulder.  No idea if it's p/c or not but works for me...I refer here to the fowler (flat) plate not so much the crescent type...