Wow - didn't think it was as good as you guys make it sound! To us it was always 'the old shotgun'. He made the butt end of the stock just a plain, straight cut at a slight angle from the heel to the toe. He seems to have matched the wood and finish pretty closely to the forestock. The rubber recoil pad that my father or grandfather put on had pretty well rotted off, so I just added the Shooterpads Gelpad.
My grandfather did do a lot of carving. He had carved various decorative chains, balls-in-cages, saddle parts, stirrups, and other things. The trigger guard has is a long tail piece that is inlaid into the stock, and right where you can see that screw head sticking out it looks like it had broken off and was brazed back together. It extends another 4.5 inches to the rear of that screw. My guess is that the original stock broke there and he carved up a new one and fit it, and brazed the broken pieces of the tail of the trigger guard. I never did hear any stories about the stock breaking, though.
At any rate, I'm definitely keeping it, and hope to be doing a decent amount of shooting with it.
Here are a few more photos:
Thanks again, everyone, for all the information and pointers to more info!
