24k gold may be the best material for an engraver but not the best material for the guy in-letting into a stock.
Here in the UK, stockers tend to let the oval in first before it is engraved and use a lower carat for the hardness. The hardness prevents the oval from deforming in the in-letting and enables the stocker to file the oval flat with the stock body. Also, with the cost of gold these days buying a strip of 10k for ovals is far cheaper that a strip of 24k.
Many years ago I was asked to inlet a new set of fully engraved ovals into a pair of guns. The customer had gone ahead, against my advice and had a set of ovals made and fancily engraved. Not only were the ovals smaller than the ones they were replacing but they were not the correct curve for the stock. A large amount of cursing followed as I took a serious amount of time to reshape the curve carefully and put them centrally in the old holes without marking them. Never again.
