Hard rubber butt plates

[Robert Bork]

All of the old guns that did not have steel butt plates seem to have had hard rubber ones on them. Does anyone make the old hard rubber plates any more? I find the urathane copies offensive to my eye. I wonder what the process was, and what it would take? Any ideas?

[Rick Losey]

i don't think they were hard rubber

they might have been gutta percha

and i don't think that is used any longer

[Austin J Hawthorne Jr.]

I think that gutta percha was/is considered a carcinogen. Anyone know for sure?

[Greg Baehman]

Galazan's catalogs claim that their reproduction Parker butt plates are made from hard rubber, they say "they are not made of plastic or other similar inexpensive material. These hand-made butt plates are indistinguishable from originals when properly fitted."
http://www.csmcspecials.com/SearchResults.asp?Search=parker+butt+plates&Submit=Search

[Dean Romig]

Gutta percha was made from the sap from a tree and is what was referred to as "Hard rubber" in the day.... a carcinogen?

[Kevin McCormack]

Before gutta percha I think they were made out of neki hokey. Bill Murphy and I have a friend who was a dental technician in the US navy and made up some buttplates from incredibly detailed sand molds taken from originals. He used a type of soft dental epoxy colored with dyed Acraglass (sp?). Whatever the thermal conversion that occurred during the curing process, they really were indistinguishable from old original plates., even down to the olive-sulpher color He even molded and cast a buttplate for the giant #7 frame 8 ga. Parker.

[Austin J Hawthorne Jr.]

Dean, My mistake. I believe I was thinking of Bakelite.

[George M. Purtill]

So who is actually making the repro plates?

[chris dawe]

Personally I prefer the Galazan reproductions .