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Sorry duggap, your butt plate photos are not a cross section of every type, they are in fact, for the most part, the flat butt plates for muskets and shotguns. I've built to many muzzle loading firearms to not recognize a butt plate. The concave ones are for rifles, and there are lots of those, it's not a rare thing. The unique part of the butt plate being questioned is the part that is pointing back. That is very unique, and is why I mentioned Shutzen rifles, they are know for having concave butt plates with those spike looking things sticking out both top and bottom, or just the top or just the bottom. Muzzle loaders were manufactured one at a time, by individuals. They made every part of the gun, by hand, each screw, each brass part, each spring, the barrel was hand forged, and forge welded, and the rifling's were cut by hand. Depending on the area, there were "schools" of rifle making where most guns produced in that local area are identifiable to that location, and this butt plate doesn't fit in to any I've ever heard about. I know nothing about Canadian gun makers, but who is to say that a maker in Canada didn't come up with the idea that a rifle could be held steadier with that protrusion resting on top of the shoulder. This is getting to be more typing than I feel like doing, but not all Kentucky long rifles were designed to fit on the shoulder, the concave butt plate was actually intended to fit on the arm right at the shoulder. As far as the size of the butt plate in the photo. I read the ruler as closer to 4 inches than 3 and a half. I just went out and measured some of my guns. I have an original Kentucky long rifle, from the Wolfgang Haga school of gun making in Pennsylvania, probably built in the 1780's. The butt plate on that gun is exactly the same size as the one pictured, close to 4 inches. The 1846 Mississippi rifle comes in at 4 and an eighth inches. The Springfield's I own come in at 4 1/4 to 4 1/2 inches, and my model 94 Winchester rifle is perhaps four and 1/8, while the model 94 Winchester carbine measures four and a half inches. So the measurement on the pictured butt plate are right in the ball park, and after typing all this, the only thing we have established is that it's an unique firearm butt plate, probably for a muzzleloading rifle. The screws are there because the wood has decayed away. Check and see if you can find more gun parts in the same area.