I came by two American black walnut shotgun stock blanks for very cheap.

On both, the wood feels very heavy and dense. One has some real nice fiddleback in the back area and on both sides but not much, if any, visible in the wrist area.

On both when you look at the sides, the grain runs nicely through the area that would be the wrist and seems as tight as many as I have seen. When looking at the top and bottom, the grain runs straight down the blank with no appreciable runout.

My question is on the end view. The grain ends run diagonal across the end view. The grain layers still look pretty tight though. Assuming I want to use these on some type of box lock with no through bolt, did I buy a bunch of fore arm wood or could I expect decent performance out of these blanks?

Thanks for your answers, opinions, experiences.

Sounds as if you did well, and got yourself some very usable gun stock lumber. From your description of the direction of the growth rings (not grain) when viewed from the end, it sounds as if the blanks are rift-sawn. Some wood sellers might describe it as "almost" quarter sawn. Either way, it should be quite usable according to everything else you said. Some pics would make it easier to give you more accurate information. Hopefully you got the matching forend blanks. Here's some information to give you an idea what you've got:

https://www.grandior.net/what-is-the-dif...ve-sawn-lumber/

I would say probably right in that transition between quarter and rift sawn. I did get the forearm material as well. They feel real dry and are not overly dark as I would expect kiln dried to be. I got them from someone who buys old gunsmith stock so I think they are probably old and dry enough to immediately use.

Paid 50 for the lot so I am not deep in them either way.

Thanks for the input