Made leather 'appointments' for a couple of .410 shotguns

[JAB]

My first firearm - a Christmas present from my parents when I was in my early teens - was a Stevens single shot, break action .410 shotgun. I still have it. Unfortunately, a couple of years ago there was a mishap with it that resulted in the butt plate and butt stock both being busted (unloaded, left lying on a shooting table at Spring Creek range - it fell off onto the concrete and hit butt-first.) I glued the chunk that broke off the corner of the buttstock back on and also glued the buttplate back together. I haven't shot it very much and so far the stock has held just fine but there is still an obvious line where it broke and was glued back. The buttplate, however, simply broke apart again. I have been meaning to come up with a fix for some time. This past week/weekend, I did something about it.

I like the look of the leather 'buttcuffs' I have seen in pictures of some guns (including old, musket-style muzzleloaders.) I have kind of wanted to do something similar to one of my guns for a while. I decided that a break action .410 would be a pretty good candidate and that such a cuff would cover the line where the crack was. I also decided to come up with an alternate for the buttplate.

Starting with the buttplate replacement, I had an old mousepad lying around. I ended up tracing the end of the buttstock and using the broken buttplate as a partial template to help me cut out a couple of pieces of approximately the right size and shape from that mousepad. I figured that with a .410 being pretty low recoil, already, those cushy mousepad pieces along with a layer of leather would eliminate any 'kick' it might have. I made holes in the two mousepad pieces in the appropriate places then screwed them to the end of the buttstock.

I then made a paper template of the buttstock and used it to cut out basically a flat-topped 'triangle' of leather for the buttcuff. I used the buttplate template to cut out a piece of leather for that. While I was at it, I also made a template for the forestock and cut out a piece of leather for it, too. I used a 'groover' to mark the lines where I wanted my stitches and lacing to be, punched holes for the stitching with a punch and maul, marked off my stitching holes then punched them with an awl and the maul and used an edge beveler on the edges. I wet the main piece of leather for the buttcuff so it would be a little more malleable, folded the edge of the buttcuff that was to be sewn to the buttplate section over and then used waxed thread with a double-needle saddle stitch to sew the buttplate section to the rest of the buttcuff. After that, I laced the buttcuff onto my shotgun with some leather thongs.

The leather cover for the forestock was even easier. I just punched lacing holes and laced it on. I left trailing pieces of the thongs hanging from both the forestock and buttstock and liked it pretty well. This is how it looked:

As I said, I liked it pretty well but saw room for improvement. I ended up taking the forestock leather piece back off and cutting it shorter. Also, I hadn't originally wet-molded the forestock piece as I didn't want to expose the barrel to that much moisture. When I put the shortened piece back on, I wrapped the forestock/barrel in plastic wrap to protect the barrel from the moisture, wet the forestock leather, laced it back on and molded it more tightly to the barrel and the barrel/forestock junction. When the leather dried, I loosened the laces, slid the forestock leather forward, removed the plastic wrap then slid the forestock leather back into place and tightened the lacing back down. I also ended up cutting the extra length of thongs off of the buttstock , put a third piece of thong in with the extra length on the forestock and partially braided them. I found that twisting that braid around my hand helps to further stabilize the shotgun when shouldered, sort of the way some folks use a sling for greater stabilization.

I also kind of have an interest in 'natural' dyes, finishes, stains and so on for leather. I decided I wanted to use walnut hulls to stain the leather. I used some walnuts left from last year that still had part of the outer hull on them. That outer hull was pretty dried up so I soaked a few of the walnuts in warm water until it reconstituted a little. I then rubbed the walnuts directly on the leather. It gave a nice color - quite literally a walnut stain - but unfortunately the hulls were more abrasive than I realized. Even rubbing lightly, the leather got some scratches on it. I am now planning to soak/steep several of the walnuts in a fair amount of water then remove the walnuts and boil the water to reduce the volume. I am hoping to make a natural dye by doing so. I am not sure if I will use it to dye the buttcuff/forestock piece any darker or just reserve it for future projects. This is what I have right now:

With the mousepad pieces and leather buttcuff in place, firing 3 inch #6 shot it honestly feels like shooting a .22. Normally, I am a bit of a recoil junkie but I can also appreciate low recoil, sometimes. I'm thinking that this little .410 may regain its 'woods walking shotgun' status that it had back when I first got it. I am now even considering making a leather 'possibles bag' so I can carry extra ammo for it (being that it is a single shot) along with some other stuff. I am also considering making a simple sling for it that would be integrated into the buttcuff/forestock leather. I know that single shots are perfect for just carrying in the hand but can envision times during woods walks when I might want the use of both hands and a sling would be handy for those times.

Also, my mom has decided that she can no longer handle the weight of a 12 or 20 gauge pump shotgun well enough to be effective with one (she has fibromyalgia as well as some arthritis in her back.) To that end, she recently bought a Mossberg 500 in .410. Part of her Mother's Day gift was that I bought her some of the Federal SD .410 rounds (the buckshot loads made for the Judge) as well as some of the Winchester PDX1 SD rounds so she could pattern them and see which ones work better from her shotgun. I took my .410 to show the leather work to her (I know she also likes this kind of thing) and when she saw what I had done to my little .410 she liked it so much (actually, she said, "That looks nice. I want one of those on mine!") that this ended up being another part of what I did for her for Mother's Day:

She has said that even the recoil of this little .410 is a bit painful for her with the physical difficulties she has developed. I took the opportunity to address that by cutting a couple more pieces out of the old mousepad, gluing them together then gluing them inside the buttplate area of the buttcuff to give her a little extra cushioning. Maybe not exactly what most moms would want but I think mine loved what she got.

Edited May 14, 2012 by JAB

[gjohnsoniv]

Very nice. It would also be pretty cool to made a carrier for the .410 shells into one the cover. I know I've seen some people do it before and it looks pretty cool.

[JAB]

Very nice. It would also be pretty cool to made a carrier for the .410 shells into one the cover. I know I've seen some people do it before and it looks pretty cool.

Thanks for the comments. I did think about incorporating some shell loops into the buttcuff but decided I like the 'sleek' look without a built in shell carrier better. Also, I had one of those elastic shell carrier buttcuffs on it at one time and, to me, while having the extra shells there is convenient, they tend to kind of get in my way. If I decide to put a sling on it, I will probably somehow incorporate a way to carry extra shells into that. In fact, the ability to do so is a major reason I might end up putting a sling on it.

Edited May 14, 2012 by JAB

[gjohnsoniv]

Thanks for the comments. I did think about incorporating some shell loops into the buttcuff but decided I like the 'sleek' look without a built in shell carrier better. Also, I had one of those elastic shell carrier buttcuffs on it at one time and, to me, while having the extra shells there is convenient, they tend to kind of get in my way. If I decide to put a sling on it, I will probably somehow incorporate a way to carry extra shells into that. In fact, the ability to do so is a major reason I might end up putting a sling on it.

In that case it doesn't really matter since you're going to have the shell holder. I've just always liked having some extra on the gun itself.

[UncleJak]

This looks awesome! I have an old 16 ga I am going to attempt this on. I hope mine looks half as good as yours.

[JAB]

This looks awesome! I have an old 16 ga I am going to attempt this on. I hope mine looks half as good as yours.

Thanks. In all honestly, these are pretty easy to make. I think it took me longer to mark off and punch all the holes for the lacing and the stitching than it did to sew it together and lace it onto the gun.

I normally use something like an 8 ounce vegetable tanned leather for holsters. For this project, I still used a veggie tanned but chose leather that was more thin. Not sure of the exact weight but I'm guessing something more like a 5 or 6 ounce. I am glad I did because I don't think it would look as good with thicker leather.

For that matter, buckskin would probably look pretty good. I just have never worked with buckskin and wanted something a little more stiff for my application.

Edited May 15, 2012 by JAB

[JAB]

In that case it doesn't really matter since you're going to have the shell holder. I've just always liked having some extra on the gun itself.

Having those extra shells 'right there' certainly is convenient - especially with a single shot. I put those elastic buttcuffs on all my single shot shotguns after seeing a video on YouTube of Clint Smith demonstrating how quickly a single shot could be run for SD/HD applications. I don't really use my singles in that role although being prepared to do so as 'backup' to my HD pump shotgun is probably not a bad idea. I like the elastic holder on my single shot 12 gauge and on an old, three shot (two in mag, one in chamber) 20 gauge bolt action I have but on the .410, for some reason, it kind of gets in the way. Loading from a sling-mounted carrier won't be as fast but hopefully I won't run into a situation where I need to reload the .410 that quickly.

[gjohnsoniv]

I have one of the elastic ones on one shotgun that I threw on there before a duck hunt. Can't say I'm really a fan because mine kept sliding around on me which is incredibly frustrating.

[JAB]

Well, I decided to go ahead and add a sling with an incorporated shell holder. After my previous results with using walnuts to stain the leather, I left a few of the walnuts in a bowl of water for a few days. The walnuts absorbed some of the water and shed particles from their previously dried-up hulls (not the shells, the hull that is outside the shell) resulting in a thin, dark 'sludge' in the bowl. I used that 'sludge', applied with a sponge, to stain the shell holder. I also used some if it and the sponge to darken the color on the buttstock/forestock covers a bit.

For the sling, itself, I simply braided together some of the same thongs that I used to lace the other parts onto the shotgun. I haven't stained the sling, yet, and haven't decided if I will. The thongs are already darker than the leather for the buttstock/forestock covers originally were but I still might decide to stain the sling so that everything will match better. Other than that, this is pretty much the finished product, at least for now:

[gjohnsoniv]

I like that.

[JAB]

I like that.

Thankee.

[cch2a]

Very cool. My first gun was a Stevens side by side .410 that my dad got when he was 16 and gave to me when I turned 16. Will never sell it for sure.

[peejman]

NIce work.