Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters What's under the butt plate

It pays to look under the butt plate of a used firearm. Sometimes there is a nice surprise hidden there. The previous owner of this Browning T-Bolt didn't know that there was a spare magazine stashed away. I have found previous owner information in a Winchester 94 and left some information under more than a few butt plates myself.

I thought this was a good idea for the Browning. These magazines can be hard to find and this makes it easy to keep up with.

We found my grandpas hunting license from the 50’s rolled up in the butt of his shotgun I inherited. I guess that used to be pretty common.

Cool score!

As Gomer often said, surprise, surprise !

I picked up a Swiss Vetterli, the one with the two pronged, wish-bone looking, rim-fire firing pin..... it was broken....

Under the butt plate was a spare

I always put my initials on any stock I made.Father did the same.

Cool.

In my youth some said it was common to put an extra round or three in their hunting rifles.

I bought an old bubba'ed Krag many years ago. Besides having this crude carving in the stock with a 11/18/34 date stamped under it, there were two Western Open Point cartridges wrapped in a cloth in the butt trap. Cosmoline, or whatever the stock had been treated with, had soaked the cloth and coated the two cartridges. I wonder if they were placed there by the guy that made the carving....

My Father always put a small taped up piece of paper with his name under the butt plate.

For fun mostly I inset a small brass screw-top container into the barrel channel of my Rem 721 which wears a 700 RS stock. Inside is a treasured NOS extractor!

Back in 1977 I bought a Remington pump rifle in .30 remington from a pawn shop. At the time I was 22 years old, my wife worked evenings as a waitress so I had nothing to do so I decided to take the butt plate off the 30 Remington. Found $335.00 in silver cert. rolled up in the butt stock. I just had to go buy another gun.

I've seen a few things myself, a bud bought a 97 from some ranchers he had helped over the years. It had 60-70 years of accumulated gunk in it. He asked me if I would give it a clean as I know my way around 97's so I did. found 7 hunting licenses under the butt with fed duck stamps and all. He framed them and sent them to the guys widow and daughter , they were speechless. He now has lifetime hunting privileges on that 7000 acres.
Last time was an original Sharps 74 business rifle dating fron October of 1876. These rifles had the last 3 digits of the serial number on key components, the barrel, lock plate, and butt plate to name a few. So I was checking it out and pulled the butt plate off found the numbers all right but there was a wire protruding from a hole in the stock. I pulled out the wire it was wrapped around a firing pin replacement. Normal Sharps 74 pin is a 1 piece horseshoe shaped affair . This one had been modified to take a replacement pin that screwed into the end of the transfer bar. Frontier gunsmithing circa 1870's. Way cool old school, after all the 74 Sharps Rifle made the west safe for fawking winchesters..mb

I've never found anything very interesting, contact information, licenses, matches, a candle stub, fishing hooks, line, and sinkers.

Bought an all-original K31 Swiss military straight-pull bolt rifle in 2005, and while doing research discovered that each rifle issued to a Swiss citizen (due to their long tradition of a militia rather than a standing army) supposedly had a slip of paper with the name, military unit and address of the citizen. Mine still had the paper, and the guy's name was Jurg Aeschliman. (Published that info both in an article and the first Big Book of Gun Gack, asking Jurg to contact me if he read it--which not surprisingly never happened.)

Purchased a Griffin & Howe 1903 Springfield sporter from Capital Sports in Helena, Montana early this year, and many had steel buttplates with a hinged center, covering recesses in the buttstock where various things could be stored--often the slide for the near-standard Lyman receiver sight. But mine had three holes, two smaller ones for extra .30-06 rounds, and a larger one for an aluminum cylinder containing "gun oil," and a leather pull-through "cleaner." The two rounds were gone, but they'd been there when Capital bought the rifle--and Dave Tobel reported they were "as green as the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Butte." The aluminum bore-cleaning kit, however, is in great condition.

I put a bunch of 148 grain lead wad cutters in my BT-99. There isn't a trap gun out that can't an extra pound in the stock. Bob

I once found under the buttplate of a Newton rifle the name "F.H. Riggall, Pincher Creek, Alberta".
F.H. riggall was a noted big game quide that guided martin bovey to the world record big horn sheep in the '20s. under a krag buttplate, I found the short roster of past owners since 1930. Beneath the hard rubber butt of a Model 12 I found a 1921 Iowa hunting license. Seems like there was one other.

Cool stuff! A PO Ackley made custom on a Husqvarna action has a buttplate with a hinged door. Inside was a cord with a patch on it for cleaning with a metal drop through. The cotton cord was dry rotted and has now been replaced. I also put a note in there with my information on it along with what part of the country I could trace the rifle to. I'm also going to add some information about a hunt the rifle accompanied me on a couple of weeks ago when we got a 6 point buck.

Wandering through a local pawn shop, I noticed a Redding "Powder & Bullet" scale. Marked for $35.
It's in the original box with all its parts, even the instructions.
"I'll give you $20!"
The clerk grabs the box and walks off. I wondered if I had tic'd him off. THEN I realize he's headed to the checkout! Almost ripped my pocket off trying to get my wallet out! 😃
The little scale is absolutely pristine. The stand has a small reservoir that holds oil. The beam has a "paddle" that sits in the oil reservoir. The oil and paddle act as a dampener rather than magnets.

At home, I'm sitting in my recliner, admiring my new "toy" when the wife picks up the instruction sheet. Literally an 8×10 sheet of paper with printing on one side.
As she unfolds the instructions, something flutters to the floor.
"What's this?", she asks and picks it up and hands it to me.
It's a 1959 Federal Duck Stamp, unsigned!
THAT little jewel is worth $80!
The scale? Meh, still worth about $45!
Not a bad deal!

Never found anything under a buttplate.
And my Redding #2 scale didnt have a duck stamp.
Darn the luck LOL

I've never found anything under a butt plate. But while walking out of a pawn shop in Fairbanks with a newly purchased Ruger flat bolt in .250 Savage I found a $100 bill on the floor. This was in Janurary 1979 when that was a chunk of money. I had only paid $200 for the rifle and the shop owner was not happy with the deal, but I guess needed a sale. Apparently the -50* temps were not helping his business. So, as he was heading into the back I asked if he had lost the $100. He replied FU. So, with a clear conscious I left with the $100 and the rifle.