One of the more famous Northwestern US custom rifle makers, who is no longer around, had an article on his website showing in detailed pictures his method of installing a skeleton steel buttplate to his customs. His method was something I had not seen and have been wanting to try ever since. He took the buttplate and inlet it to the stock to only a shallow depth (the inside of the plate being concave) to just the point that the outside of the plate was fitted closely to the butt and generously supported all around. He then took a piece of walnut directly from the blank and chose a piece laid out for the best wear resistence and ability to take fine checkering. He then finely fit this to the inside of the skeleton butt plate cutout, trimmed and finished the outside and checkered. The front of this plug (if you will) was cut very slightly short and epoxied to the butt while the plate was installed on the stock. He was well known for his skeleton plates, and I doubt if anyone realized it until he posted this tutorial. It is not classic stock making, but it had advantages. He stated that it was much quicker to do, and made it possible to repair many of the butts that were damaged in use with much less impact to the stock dimensions. In a case like yours, it would allow the installation with less reduction in LOP if installing a skeleton plate.
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