doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com OT: Raising your own stock blanks

George:

Did it work? You can't leave us hanging with a story like that.

Rem

When it comes to gun wood, I've learned the hard way that good stock blanks, " don't grow on trees". In Oregon, there's lots of walnut trees, both black and English. I cut three large trees without much material for stocks. By the time I found that out, I had a lot of money and labor invested.The climate seems to rule out finding gun stocks in them. The black wood tends to be very porous, and the English very bland. In Portland there's a large operation that cuts nothing but walnut. It covers more than an acre and has dozens of stacks of slabbed trunks. A small room is devoted to stock blanks, and I saw nothing there worth working on. Oregon just has too much rain to grow hard, dense wood. I was told that trees which take up much moisture from the ground have better color and texture than ones that absorb a lot of water through the leaves. Whether this is true, I can't say, but a hundred miles south into CA where the trees are irrigated, great wood was easy to find though expensive.

I went back to school thinking my parents had finally gone completely nuts, but they claim the fleas left; probably looking for a less third world kind of place to live...Geo

If gun wood is the objective there are plenty of websites and videos illustrating the best way to slice and dice. Google is your friend. Look at them before you put a tree on the ground. They may change how you do it.

SamW sent me a few more pictures to upload.

this time for a rolling block. Sam, what caliber is that rifle and will I be seeing it at Raton next week? I hope so.

So, did you carve those panels on the stock? And who did that engraving! They are both exquisite. I love those gold squirrels. We may be getting a bit into the weeds, but I sure would like to know a lot more about that rifle and why I've never seen it in person at Raton, that is a beautiful rifle and then some!

It is a 25-20. My engraving and my carving. Been a long time project that I hope to finish this coming winter. It is a Rem Number 1 1/2 carbine made about 1893 or 4.

Will you use it for anything besides paper punching, Sam? It is sure nice. No, not just nice ............... beautiful.

SRH

The plan is for my grandson to look his best while squirrel hunting on the same property the stock came off of.

Oh yeah, that will work! For sure. Great squirrel rifle, indeed, and maybe more.

In 1975, I began planting trees and shrubs on 26 acres of flax stubble. The planting was for all wildlife, not any particular species or group of species. As a sport hunter, I wanted flushed or running game to quickly get out of view, so planted in curves, with blocks of the woodies five rows wide and 150 feet long. I changed species at the end of every block for maximum �edge effect� that biologists say increases wildlife diversity. I began with 38 species recommended as hardy in North Dakota, and over the next 40 years planted 65 more species of trees, shrubs, and vines, a few hardy, but many listed as hardy only in more southerly areas. So far about 40% of those species have survived, even though as a few individuals. I also left three grassy openings in the plot, two for grassland birds and one for winter wildlife food.

Even though I lost many of the species to drought and animal damage, the wildlife response has been amazing. Breeding bird species increased from four in 1975 to 33 in 1999, and the number of breeding pairs increased from 13 in 1975 to 177 in 2008. Over the 41 years of surveys, 62 species of birds bred in the woodlot. Birds associated with shrublands and open woodlands showed the greatest increase; forest birds have always been rare, but have been increasing in recent decades. I�ve harvested quite a few deer and some upland game in the woodlot. One bad winter over a hundred whitetails survived there, stripping bark from trees up to four inches in diameter and leaving a browse line visible in the spring.

My black walnuts are about a foot in diameter now. At 82 and with bad eyesight, I don�t think I will be making any more gunstocks, but hopefully some day one of my trees will support the action of a firearm, of course preferably a double shotgun.