Hmmm... you bring up an interesting point there. 🤔
Discussion
I sew leather and wool quite often so I am familiar with the button/snap dilemma. If it was just leather w/o the scales, then I would say button. However I think the preservation of the scales weighs on the snap side.
Here is a tourmaline button with mule deer leather. A foraging bag I made a while back.
The last photo has a beaded patch that I added to cover the bullet hole. ✊🏽🫶🏽
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I think I'm going to go with a button & loop rather than a button hole... I'm obsessing over the bone button idea & I'm probably going to end up on a fun side quest of making buttons out of sun bleached deer antler 🥲😂