Just to throw in my own ‘non-expert’, two cents. Competent factory record information perhaps near ‘ultimate’ in reasonable proof of Winchester recoil pad originality. For the myriad Winchesters without benefit of such source information for whatever reason, fact of viewing non-original pad not to speak directly toward whether or not such rifle originally pad equipped.
On ‘vintage’ rifles; comparable vintage pads usually hard, crumbling, useless appendages. Moreover, typically unsightly and long discarded. Once any pad installed at any point in rifle history, returning to ‘non-pad’ dimensions, usually aesthetic & practically, an impossibility. New pads consequential to replacing old pads, something of ‘die cast’. Nowadays, ‘original style’ red Winchester pads, also not suggesting whatever original pattern so much as motive to provide ‘aura of originality’.
Just my take