I have some mammoth ivory and wondered if anyone else has ''inlayed it'' in their rifle without it umm err looking tacky or any ideas ??on something that looks good or tasteful.Or should i just put it back on the mantlepiece as a curio

The stuff makes great knife handles!

Also very popular for 1911 grips. I'm not fan of inalys on rifles but I have seen some tasteful ivory diamond inlay in the checkering pattern of some. If you have a mantlepiece I'd save it and just buy some chips from a knife-maker supply house like Texas Knives.

Not to everyone's taste, but here are 2 examples of works in progress. Both need much more work in the background, darkening it to reduce the light-color contrast and make the inserts appear less gaudy. The ram is fossil ivory and you can see some imperfections in it but this piece is unusually clean and clear for fossil ivory. Your mammoth ivory is slightly more difficult to work than elephant ivory but can give good results too.


Ivory can also work well on a muzzle-loader, for the thumb-plate inlay on the top of the rifle's wrist or an inlay on the sliding patchboz cover.
Regards, Joe