Rubber spacer
 

The tapered spacer is on a ph made in 1892. The letter makes no mention of it being added. with the spacer removed the butt plate is proud to the wood. Either the butt plate is not original or it's factory and no mention made because it's a small thing. The letter states it was sent back to the factory for a set of 26 inch Damascus barrels to make as light as possible. Just curious.
Al

That looks like something that someone added at one point in order to adjust the pitch of the butt.

what should my Butt Pitch be?

The pitch of Parker butts varied quite a lot Legh. I have seen them from almost a zero pitch to over 4" but the average is from about 1" to almost 3". Again, there are guns who's pitch will fall outside these measurements.
You should be shooting a gun with a pitch that is comfortable to you and that you don't have to compensate for.

A gun with less than 1" even to a negative number, will generally shoot high and a gun with more than 3 1/2" will tend to shoot low.





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Are you speaking of pitch Dean or DAH? Brownells sells 'pitch spacers."

http://www.brownells.com/rifle-parts...-prod7398.aspx

Pitch Richard, not drop.




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To answer the original poster, "The Parker Brothers factory did not install that spacer. The original buttplate does not fit because the wood was cut to make the modification.

Mr. Romig jogged my memory about pitch. After reading I went and measured all my doubles. I got anywhere from 1/2" to 5". But in measuring, do you read the tape from the wall to the top of the rib, the center of the bore, or the bottom of the rib? I can't remember.

To the top of the rib at the muzzles.





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I'm not so sure the buttplate stands proud because the wood was cut.

Why cut wood out just to fit in a spacer to replace the wood you cut out?

I think the spacer was added and thanks to possibly heat and/or many decades of getting used to it, the buttplate took a new shape and doesn't want to go back to where it started life. It's like the Fonz said, "There's no going home again..."