I recall reading, either on this forum or in one of my longrifle books, that when the old original stockers inletted the brass patchboxes, they did so in a manner that resulted in the outer surfaces of the wings, etc were above the surrounding buttstock wood.
If so, was the reason for a practical reason or an artistic quality.
I can see that on these old rifles, the wood would shrink and thus give the impression that the inletting was indeed performed in a manner, that had the buttstock surface below the brass patchbox.
