I am in the same boat and have been considering the sporting clays pad. While a period correct pad would be great, they don't necessarily look better than the modern alternatives. I do think that a rich, red colored pad looks great on a nice piece of wood. My Ruger 3006 has the older hard red butt pad and looks great. It would be perfect if Pachmayer made a thin red decelerator pad, but so far they only have an ugly brown and the standard black. The sporting clays doesn't add much to the look of the gun, either.
The Silvers and thick red pads that Galazan sells are too thick.
Galazan has a 1/2" hard red pad that looks pretty good. I know they are in stock because I just got three of them this week. London Guns made a 5/8" red pad that also looked right on vintage guns, but they are out of production and inventory is gone; you might find one on the web or post here for WTB. If you need just a bit more length on either of these, you can add one of Tony's black phenolic spacers.
