Wooden dowel in buttstock - did they add weights ?

[Richard Flanders]

Unless a dowel is made of a wood as dense as walnut they should decrease the weight a very small amount. As for moisture making a dowel 'stretch', that is unlikely if it the dowel was properly quarter sawn with the grain parallel to the dowel. The moisture content of wood has very little bearing on shrinkage and swelling parallel to the grain.

[Double Play]

Not really sure what they were for but these plugged holes were in the back end of a 16 gage CHE I once owned. I always assumed they were for balance as I don't recall a pat. date stamped in the stock.