Attached Link: http://uvmapper.com

Good UV mapping is not an easy thing, and it is one of those things that very few modelers around here know how to (or take the time to) do well. What you are seeing is stretching at the seams when doing a front/back split planar map. It is because the facets are all squished together near the sides of the object as the rounded mesh is projected onto the flat plane. You need to manually edit the mapping coordinates to pull these facets outward (unwrap them). Or you need to use a combination of cylindircal mapping on some parts and planar mapping on others. UV Mapper Pro has a nice feature which allows fairly easy access to these compressed edges and allows you to pull them out. A tutorial is on Steve Cox's website. The attached image shows good "unwrapped mapping" on the left and standard planar mapping on the right. Of course this is just a test texture, and not intended to shock the feint of heart.