Another project to add to the 25…  Idle time waiting on a machine to finish cutting causes the mind to race.   
On one of my last Ballard builds, Ol’Lucky serial number 6777, I put a butt plate originally designed for a muzzle loader on it, a bronze casting I picked up from Track of the Wolf.  I really like the fit and feel of this one and I have ones similar to it on more than one of my Ballard builds, but there is a problem with it.  It qualifies as a “hooked” butt plate and some of the disciplines I compete in don’t allow that.  So rather than do something drastic like cut the hook off or try to make another non hook try to fit this, I thought maybe a pewter pour was in order.  I was running a little short on pewter and a roll of 95-5 is expensive.   I dug through my stashes and discovered I had quite a stock of babbit, from my bearing days.  Babbit pours fairly well just below 500°, so I thought I’d give it a whirl.  Here's pics of both now.

Amazing...




JMH

Bob, 
The through bolt hole was a biggy on this, it made a means of removing the plate the first time, I poured it with the stock off the rifle, gentle tapping with a dowel through the stock made initial removal easy.  The cast plug offers a solid means of fitting the plate too.  I see one of these on a couple more Ballards and a Borchardt.
G

Greg,
My first Ballard had an aluminum double prong buttplate and I was contemplating cutting the top prong off, but decided to make a copy using casting resin.  I made a mould and poured one, cut off the top prong and painted it black.  It worked well until it sat prong down in my safe in the hot summer as the prong ended up bent almost flat