Gentlemen:
The great Skeleton Butt Plate experiment is indeed underway. The die is complete and will be tested soon, hopefully in the next couple of days. I am sure we will have to do a small amount of tuning to do on the die to get it all just right, but the hard work is done. Our goal is to have them for the ACGG show in Reno at the end of the month.
The plate will be similar to what has been offered by Dakota, Brownell's and Galazan. It will be a high quality plate made of mild steel .100" thick. The inside edges will have a 2 degree relief angle to make it easier to fit, and the outside edges angled to match the contours of the stock with a return on the top of the heel.
This is uncharted waters for us. It is difficult to do market analysis on such a small market item as this. Hopefully there will be enough demand to make it all work.
Right now the only item in the works is this butt plate. If there appears to be enough demand to justify the cost Skeleton Grip Caps can be made. They should be a less formidable challenge than the plates. We also plan to make plain, unskeletonized skeleton butt plates for folks like Mr. Hurst to scratch up.
Curiously enough this whole project began with the desires of a certain individual we are building a rifle for, a gentleman who's taste runs to the far side of subtle elegance. (Think large gold rings and a Fedora) This gentleman (No need to use names) longed for a skeleton butt plate made of Damascus steel. This has not been forgotten, and will have some Damascus steel and intend to make a few plates from that as well. It will be most interesting to see how these come out.
Any and all input is most welcome. Hopefully in a few days I can report back with some good news.
Respectfully,
Glenn Fewless
