At fifteen feet away, the only possible influences on "look" are the subtlety or bravado of color choice and the proper fairing (flush, lines in profile a continuation of stock comb and underline). Everything else has to do with the cache of historical correctness. Buttplates are "better" when original to the gun and bearing some reference to or associaton with the marque, for instance company logo, widow's peak. Leather covered and checkered butts belong on Brit and Brit "homage" guns. Same applies to pads, Ithaca "Sunburst" buttressing looks "better" on an Ithaca double of a specific period than does a Pachmayr Sporting Clays. Inlet heel and toe caps have got to be the worst utilitarian choice ever invented but they also look the "best"; read greatest amount of painstaking labour purchased. I personally like Velcro hook on a checkered butt that's the right LOP; looks like crap but works. I like the looks of leathered covered with the burnished lines best of all.
jack
