Buffalo horn nose cap...do's, don'ts?

[rabjr]

I decided I wanted a nose cap on my project but wanted something else other than an iron cap. My rifle is all iron mounted. I remembered I had bought a couple of buffalo horn slabs from Dixie awhile back for a knife handle someday. Having never worked with horn before I wasn't sure these would work but I thought it all out and gave it a try.

What I did was, put a 15/16s barrel in the vice which was slightly smaller than the muzzle of this this rifle, where I wanted the cap to be. Then I put the slab in heated crisco to soften it. Took it out and wraped around the 15/16s barrel and clamped it.

Using a bandsaw and files I trimmed it and fitted it to the rifles muzzle. I glued a piece of paper that I knew the edges were square to the piece and filed down to the edges to square the piece. And made a face plate...

I think I have a good start to a buffalo horn nose cap but before I start to fit it to the wood I need to know a couple of things.

These deteriate? crack over time?

Is it treated the same as brass or iron when inletting the nose cap, the same thickness, say .030ish? Or do you go slightly thicker with horn?

 

[Riley/MN]

Interesting, I have been thinking of doing a buffalo horn tip/entry for my 12 ga sxs (navy arms cheapy). I was thinking of using the end of the horn as the entry and have it come back along the bottom of the fore-end with scrollwork to match that on the trigger guard. I have also considered replacing the checkered plastic buttplate with a slab of buffalo horn. I will be interested to see how your project turns out.

 

[pcrum]

I'd like to hear more on this as well. I'm getting ready to build a Jager, and it seems that a few of them had horn nosecaps.
However, I do know that my horn that I've used for the past 7 years or so is cracking a bit around the plug. how is this prevented?