Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters crescent buttplates

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The snottiest rifle I have ever shot was Ruger #3, with "modern rifle" hand loads in 45-70.
Crescent butt plate killed shoulder, lever tore up my hand, stock slapped face, just nothing to recommend that rifle. [/quote]

I'll second that comment. I had a .375 Winchester in Ruger #3. It was quite accurate but it was at a maximum load. Consequently it kicked like a SOB.

The crescent butt plate was rolled and inlet into the top of the stock. I wanted to add a good recoil pad but it would have required either filler pieces or else would have resulted in a very short stock. I still have several hundred cast bullets I made up for that rifle.

Jim

This.

Also, those old rifles were meant to be shot with open sights. Put a scope on a rifle with a low comb and hold your head higher to let it get a running start at your cheek and the comb will karate chop you in the chops every time.

I've been shooting an older .30-06 1895 Winchester with the steel crescent buttplate and was skeered to death it was going to hurt when I first shot it. All that angst for nothing. From off hand or kneeling with the peep sight on it, it isn't bad at all. I mean really, not "'not too bad!', he said as he wiped his bleeding nose", but truly nothing a modern .270 wouldn't dish out. Certainly nothing like a scoped Marlin .444 that brutalized my poor face. Now take that same 1895 and fire 30 or 40 rounds from benchrest working up a load and the resulting big purple bruise will last a week.

I've no doubt the #3 and 1885 falling block rifles with crescent buttplates cited, in the chamberings cited, were pretty punishing from the bench. But again, those are either modern iterations of a vintage design (1885) or inspired by vintage designs (Ruger #3), where a crescent buttplate would look "at home."

The point in my earlier post being: there isn't exactly a trend among rifle manufacturers to equip current rifles with crescent buttplates per the OP's implication. Not only would they look totally out of place on modern rifle stock designs and be very impractical on a typical scoped hunting rifle, but they're more expensive to install and would drive up the price unnecessarily.

mcmurph. Ya 500 gr. Hornady's and book max loads of I-4198 turned mine into a 26" 220 Swift REAL fast!-Muddy

, got a crescent butt '86 in 50-110 wcf that's kindly spry when you touch it off, mine shoots best kinda out on the ball of my shoulder a bit, wont fit in the 'standard butt' shoulder pocket.

I've come to realize that hot rodding a 45-70 is a great way to induce punishment with any rifle. A 400+ grain slug at about 1,250 fps will still go through 18 to 20 1-gallon water jugs with ease. I hopped up some rounds for a Marlin Guide Gun, and I'd be happy if someone would come through and shoot them up for me. It was certainly a mistake to load up 100 rds.

My dad has one of the Savage 1895 commemorative editions(.308) they made in 1970...took it out with Dad, my brother and my nephew after he got it(last fall). None of us found it unpleasant to shoot.