Wooden dowel in buttstock - did they add weights ?

[Double Trouble]

I was taking pictures of my Parker "Folsom trap gun" last night. (A ca. 1886 hammer 12 ga.)

When I removed the buttplate, I saw a round wooden dowel (approx. 1/2" in diameter) centered between the two screw holes. It was approx. 1/16" proud of the surrounding wood.

Oddly enough, I'm sure I removed the buttplate in the past, but I must have been too blind to notice this !!!! I recall a grouse hunt with the RGS, in which this gun got totally soaked in the rain - I wonder if the resultant swelling made the dowel protrude from the surrounding wood ?

Regardless - my question is this: I recall an old thread that stated Parker didn't start using the hickory dowels until the 1890's. Plus, being located exactly between the screw holes is not where the patent drawing shows the reinforcing dowel being located (Dean posted this patent drawing a while back).

Did Parker drill out the butt, add some weight - and then close off the hole with the dowel ? Was that common on those Folsom Parkers ? (The letter doesn't mention that...) This hammer gun is a #1 frame, with 30" barrels, and the letter claims 7 pounds, 14 ounces. Is that a typical weight ? The gun balances somewhere between the hinge pin and a point maybe as much as 1/2" toward the breech (roughly said, it balances at the hinge pin).

It just seems odd...

The gun does have Remington repair codes, but no old cracks are seen, so why would they add the reinforcement ?

Any ideas ?

[Dean Romig]

It is probably more common to find evidence of a wooden plug that caps off the hole bored for adding a lead weight billet for balance than to find one that is actually the end of a patented hickory reinforcing rod in the butt.

[Phil Yearout]

My 16ga Trojan has a similar dowel which I asked about some time back, here:

http://parkerguns.org/forums/showthread.php?t=3917

I ultimately took it to my dentist who was also a gun enthusiast. He x-rayed it for me; it extends into the stock about 3". No evidence of the hole going in further, nor evidence of any weight, etc. A mystery!

[B. Dudley]

I had a early lifter once that had 3 holes drilled in the butt under the plate and they were all filled with lead. That explained why it felt so butt heavy being a 28" 1 frame with straight grip.

Likely your plug is either capping a hole that is there for adding weight, or reducing weight.

Could have been done at any time.

[Richard Flanders]

Unless a dowel is made of a wood as dense as walnut they should decrease the weight a very small amount. As for moisture making a dowel 'stretch', that is unlikely if it the dowel was properly quarter sawn with the grain parallel to the dowel. The moisture content of wood has very little bearing on shrinkage and swelling parallel to the grain.

[Double Play]

Not really sure what they were for but these plugged holes were in the back end of a 16 gage CHE I once owned. I always assumed they were for balance as I don't recall a pat. date stamped in the stock.

[Dean Romig]

I too, once had a 10 ga. Parker hammergun with a 1" hole bored in the center of the buttstock and half-filled with a lead plug then capped with a wood plug.

Larry, the diameter of both of yours are too large for the hickory rod's diameter of about 5/8"

[Double Trouble]

Fascinating stuff - thanks guys !

John

[MD*GSP]

Could some of the mystery holes have been drilled to remove checking in the end of a pc to ensure the crack does not continue opening thus destroying the stock over time?

I would guess that would save many a blank from being deemed unsuitable and unusable.

[OH Osthaus]

Originally Posted by Scot Cardillo

Could some of the mystery holes have been drilled to remove checking in the end of a pc to ensure the crack does not continue opening thus destroying the stock over time?

I would guess that would save many a blank from being deemed unsuitable and unusable.

i suppose anything is possible - but the holes seem to have been centered and drying checks I have seen are not always that accommodating

Plus - with Parker's pride in their product, I'd like to think they were not that miserly