I personally have had 3 musk ox handle scales put on Randall knives, 2 triathletes and 1 10-3 all done by Gene Beal and all 3 have shrunk, bowed up or cracked badly.
As stated in another post this stuff really needs to dry out a LONG time before you try to use it and it must be stabalized after it is totally dried out.
I am personally advising customers, who ask about the stuff on knives that I am having done for them as a dealer, not to use it.
I have seen and heard of too many problems with it..
Stuff that is properly dried out and correctly stabalized seem to do well, but how do you know that it has been done properly?
IMO what has happened is that it came on the market about 3 years ago as the new HOT item for handles and the demand for the properly prepaired stuff far exceeded the amount available.
So dealers in the raw material started putting the stuff out there before it was ready to be used and the problems started.
That is my personal opinion.
This stuff is VERY expensive material to use on handles and it really makes me sick when I see a handle that is all shrunken up or bowed up or cracked beyond repair.
Then the material that is more expensive than ivory usually has to be replaced with another material.
I know because I had 3 of them that I had to do that with.
So, just beware if you're going to use this material.
Best, Greg Gutcher