1880 Rubber Butt

[Dean Romig]

If an order was placed in 1880 for a Parker with a skeleton steel butt plate to have a "rubber butt" installed, what was likely fitted to the gun - a hard rubber butt plate or a soft rubber 'recoil pad'?






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[Brian Hornacek]

When I have seen this listed or used in the gun world it referred to a "hard rubber butt plate" not a recoil pad.

[Dave Suponski]

Dean, I was under the impression that when "Hard Rubber Butt" was used in the records it referred to a DHBP.

[Dean Romig]

Me too Dave, but all the letter says is "install rubber butt".






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[Jim DiSpagno]

Dean, I had a C grade with that request
90681 straight grip, hard rubber butt and it was a DHBP. Jim

[Dean Romig]

Thanks Jim, but the letter only says "rubber butt" and says nothing about "hard".






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[Dean Romig]

Well, The Parker Story tells us that the soft rubber recoil pads didn't come into use on Parkers until the 1890's so I guess we need to presume a hard rubber butt plate was used on this 1880 gun, although the butt plate on the gun now bears no resemblance to the dog's head butt plates of Parker Bros. make.






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[George M. Purtill]

Show us a picture.

[Bill Murphy]

"Rubber Butt" refers to the hard rubber buttplate. It took the original Research Team a while to figure it out, but that is what we found. Various members of the team misinterpreted the term and insisted on describing it as "RUB HER BUTT".

[Dean Romig]

So Bill, where or when does the adjective "hard" come into play... was it after the introduction of the soft rubber butt, or recoil pad? It would make sense that it happened in that sequence. Why would a DHBP be described as a hard rubber butt if there were no soft rubber butts at the time to differentiate it from.





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[Bill Murphy]

I didn't make any comment about hard rubber butt. The terminology that was used in early Parker orders was "rubber butt".

[Dean Romig]

No, I understand that you made no such comment - I was wondering when and why the term "hard" came about, but I probably answered my own question in my last post.






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[greg conomos]

It's not too difficult for me to see why they would call it a hard rubber butt when there was a no 'soft' rubber butt. There were plenty of other things in the world that were soft rubber and their use of 'hard' rubber was probably just a more definite term.

For example, lots of people say they want a cold beer - why, when no one asks for a hot beer?

[Bill Murphy]

"Hard rubber butt" probably came about whenever we find it in the order book records.