Chris and Brian, once the ivory insert is removed or broken off, what do you think about gluing a bead of your choosing to the remaining shaft? Ivory beads with no mounting shafts are much cheaper than ivory beads with shafts meant for use on shotguns. I have a few left over from an order I placed for ivory blocks for inlays. My ivory, both blocks and beads were ordered from Boone Trading and are not elephant ivory.

Never seen a bead without a shaft ,I usually make my own ,so I can't really comment ...it don't sound like something I'd want to do for longevity sake

Chris, Boone Trading has a website with a little of everything. I'm going to try a bead with Super Glue and see how long it stays put. All I have to do is try to find those beads.

NECG has some Ivory shotgun beads:https://www.newenglandcustomgun.com/....php?prod=4275

Just to update, for those interested, the job is complete. What I did was this:

Used a tiny ball dental burr in my Dremel to start a hole in the center of the broken off shaft. Then, placed it in a vice in my drill press and drilled out the majority of the shaft, leaving a small amount in the threads. Used a tiny EZ-Out to try and remove the rest, which crumbled and came out very easily. I then saw that it was indeed threaded, something like a number 4 or 5 size. I knew my only ivory beads on hand were 6 X 48 so I drilled out the hole to the right size, then re-tapped it to 6 X 48 using a set of taper, plug and bottoming taps which I had on hand, as the NECG ivory bead I had on hand was also that size. Had to shorten the shank on the bead some because it was bottoming out leaving the bead sitting too high on the rib.

Turned out good. Thanks for all the tips and comments.

https://www.jpgbox.com/jpg/71357_800x600.jpg

I used a large size Galazan ivory bead on the front of my VHE .410 skeet gun. It looks like a white turd on a collard leaf, but it sure improves my shooting with the little gun. I will use a Boone's Trading large ivory bead on my next project. Yup, they're around here somewhere.