Sounds a treat. Full stocks are a challenge to get "right". Rule of thumb: whittle it down until it looks right, sleep on it, then whittle a bunch more. So many well meaning guys neglect the fact that you gotta have a slight reverse camber in the profile from the forward action screw to the end cap, but I bet you knew that. So many I see today look like 2x4's. Butterknife handles are tricky too, but I'm of no use there as I've never done one, but I do agree that when done right are efficient and classy in their own way.
I think you'll find that all the "schools" of Pennsylvania long rifle architecture focused on the lines of wood and steel working together first, and embellishment came second. Sometimes all that furniture* (inlays, patch boxes, and such) does draw the eye away from the basic form. My family heirloom Nicholas Beyer rifle is a plain "working rifle" devoid of any inlays and sports no carving that doesn't support the lines of the stock. (In fact, on top of its plainness, it's a "smooth rifle" also- no rifling. A fact of life among practical frontier rifles was that a tightly fitting patched round ball out of a smoothbore possesses near-rifle like accuracy out to 50 yards or so, and the smoothbore handles shot charges for small game way better than a rifled bore does. Very practical, and very common on what was the frontier in the late 18th-early 19th centuries.) The gun's plainness is an elegance all its own due to its well thought out lines.
* I can't help it- so many mis-informed people these days call the stock "furniture", when in truth furniture is the stuff attached to a stock.
Last edited by gnoahhh; 12/03/19.
