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I have several “Winchester” embossed, moulded butt plates, not metal, from my Uncles old collection of parts. Can any one tell me how you can distinguish between old original Winchester manufactured butt plates and “reproduction” replacement?
I would suspect to get any answers you will need to post pictures and as a guest you can’t post pictures directly to this site, you need to post them on a third party sit and add the link here.
[email protected] said
I have several “Winchester” embossed, moulded butt plates, not metal, from my Uncles old collection of parts. Can any one tell me how you can distinguish between old original Winchester manufactured butt plates and “reproduction” replacement?
A good question, but probably not easily answered without some kind of chemical test, as the best of the repros are very convincing! First question would be, of what materials were the originals made? In the 19th C., the main choices would have been hard-rubber & gutta-percha, and later, perhaps Bakelite? Whatever the modern repros are moulded from, I doubt that these traditional materials are used, but rather some epoxy product, I’d guess.
Ive always looked closely at the color, the original (or at least what I think are original) ones seem to have a touch of green tint in the light, at least to me. For all I know the couple captioned below are repro’s. Then look at the wear, wear pattern, rounding of edges to try to differentiate between original vs. repro. Even then, as Clarence said, it can be difficult or nearly impossible depending on the material the repro is made from and how early they were made.
1892takedown @sbcglobal.net ......NRA Endowment Life Member.....WACA Member
"God is great.....beer is good.....and people are crazy"... Billy Currington
I had a problem with a repro butt plate for a Winchester once. I tried to blue it and it did not turn out right at all. I think original are steel and repro’s are pot/cast metal. I threw it away and bought a used one.
I know it sounds silly but ‘smell’ is sometimes a useful indicator. Old hard rubber has a particular odor as does early rubber based materials i.e. gutta-percha. Later plastic originals look and feel the same as repros.
fwiw
44
XLIV said
I know it sounds silly but ‘smell’ is sometimes a useful indicator. Old hard rubber has a particular odor as does early rubber based materials i.e. gutta-percha. Later plastic originals look and feel the same as repros.
Not silly at all! One of the most common early plastics, celluloid, can be identified by rubbing it hard with a damp cloth, which brings out the distinct odor of camphor, one of its ingredients. However, I don’t think celluloid was much used for firearms parts, though it was used extensively in fishing tackle.
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