They'll hold up fine before your hand goes out! Their flat resting against a metal frame. What kind of stress are they going to take?
You can always apply leather dye wash to the stags to color them antique or darker if you want. They can be shaped and polished out with 600 grit emery to a shine.
I know this is the revolver forum, but pertinent to the topic, these are some elk scales that Patrick Grashorn sent me to make for my Seecamp as he didn't have a Seecamp to work with. The scales had decent "bark" and I had to thin them down on the back side to retain the bark, and inlet to fit the gun.
This is before I put the antique wash on them. I liked them better after I antiqued them to a mellow yellow ochre.