doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DIY Gunsmithing @ doublegunshop.com Unusual stock woods.

Unusual stock woods.

Just wondering what unusual stock woods you have come across, other than the perhaps more common maple and walnut.

Apple wood - On an original muzzle loader.

Pear wood - on a modern built hand made muzzle loader.

Elm - One on an old muzzle loader rebuilt from parts in antiquity and skillfully made scaled for a small boy, the other on my belgian .410 double - definately someones "restock attempt"

What have you come accross.

I have a heavy (14 lb) target m/l roundball rifle, that was built in the 1950s, that is stocked in locally grown cherry. It is very straight grained and plain............ but it is a shooting machine with the right load. A gift to me from the widow of a dear departed friend who built it.

Also have an old Husqvarna Mauser Sporter in .220 Swift that is stocked in "Arctic Beech", according to their literature. However, that is a generic term used for some of the Husqvarna stock wood of the 1940s, when my guns as made. The wood is actually European beech, Fagus Sylvatica. Light colored, and kinda plain, but seemingly very stable.

SRH

Only seen one unusual wood used for a AYA side by side when on holiday in Spain. Olive wood the grain was, I will go as far as beautiful to look at but the timbers heavy weight took all the shine off. The new stock work was all the work of the guns owner, and a fine job he made of it to right down to the drop points.

Beech is commonly used a lot in air rifle stocks over here and sometimes turns up on lower end shotguns too.

I have always wondered about olive wood, often its for sale in shops when you go to spain and similar countries where it is commonly found, i have thought about bringing some back to try as a stock wood its always beautifull but quite often cracked and knotted, its density makes it exceptionally heavy and i cant see any advantage to using it, on a heavy barreled gun it could bring the weight back between the hands if done well but it think it would add a lot of weight so as to make a gun very much dead weight and not at all lively.

Thinking over this topic brings to mind two other woods.

I once saw a beautifull piece of indian rosewood, highly figured and french polished to stock an old BSA air rifle, it made a very beautifull stock, however well figured rose wood is hard to find particularly in large pieces.

Another wood i have seen; again in the air rifle world was a quite exemplary piece of "Olive Ash" - a cover all term for wildly figured and coloured ash which somewhat resembles the colour and figure found in olive wood. Myself i have used some very nice ripple/fiddleback ash for tool handles and decorative work. I would imagine that it made a very reasonable stock - early musket stocks were, i believe often carved from ash.

Conventional suppliers of wood near me seem to have exceptionally high prices for exceptionally uninteresting stock.

I had a M14 stock made out of Sycamore at one time. It was pretty plain looking and had small fish scales but it took pure tung oil nicely. I remember seeing an Abercrombie and Fitch marked Mauser stocked in African Mahogany.

Yama wood. Buddy stocked a rifle with it back when we were in high school. Looked like a laminate to me, but was very light...Geo

I have a large rifle sized blank of Osage Orange. Very hard and heavy, I thought I'd use it for a target rifle when I cut it in the '60s.

I have a model 98 in 338-06 AI(barreled by PO Ackley) that has a rosewood stock. My friend that stocked it got the blank from Herter's. I'm not sure if it can be imported anymore, given Gibson's problems with Holder et.al.
Mike

Mesquite was quite popular for a while. If you look at the Gun Digest annuals from the 60s and 70s you'll find mesquite stocked guns in the annual custom guns section.

Hard and heavy is an understatement. I had some old osage orange that was in blocks cut from a large tree limb.........about 7" in diameter. We had a run of custom skinning knives made by Larry Page of Aiken, SC, and scaled with it. You could hit the end of a block with a hammer and it would ring, almost like iron. Densest wood I've ever had any dealings with.

I have some short starters for m/l rifles that are turned out of persimmon..............another very dense wood.

SRH