See the two little oak(?) pegs on those beautifully cut and crafted patches Middy, that shows the masses that the rifle was patched by a REAL Armourer. No grotty glue lines, no gorilla paste or plastic wood filler just craftsmanship. Make sure that you don't round the corners or edges off. Is that a crack across the undercut nose cap area? It looks like a deep scratch from here..... If that fore-end came across my bench with a crack like that I'd open up the split and inject it with some old hot bone animal glue and clamp up. It's not as good as current aero spec wood adhesive of course. Then I'd drill through from one side to the other and knock in a tight fitting oak peg then make off good.

And if someone sees it in 20 years time I'd say 'yep........ been patched by an Armourer and it'll still be there in another 40 years too'. JUst shows that it's been there, done it, got the tee shirt. JUst DON'T round off those edges any more