Alex,
As Jim has asked "whats it for?". That may be the biggest factor in determining whether the blank you have is good enough or not. If your going to restock a Savage single barrel (I have one so I'm not picking on Savage single barrels) then most any piece of walnut will probably do. If, however, your restocking a high grade Lefever you might want to spend some big bucks on the wood to start with. An Optimus grade Lefever would look pretty bad with a $50 piece of wood on it.
As to profiling (if I don't do the stock from the blank) I'll use someone that has a Hoenig machine if the stock is complicated, because of the extreme accuracy of the machine. This accuracy comes at a cost - $400+ for the job. If the job is simpler and I'm lazy,like for a Beretta 391, I use Wenig's. Fred does an excellent job for considerably less money. Fred is also set up to do forends with big holes in them like a Beretta 391 and a lot of the Hoenig guys are not. Incidently this has nothing to do with the cost of the blank because the blank I just received from Wenig's cost $1250.
You'll also notice that I didn't mention Great American Gunstocks (aka GAG)
Doug
