Don't ever listen to a wood seller tell you, "the one I am selling will be OK for thru bolt guns but not for doubles".
Does the hole down the middle somehow make the wood stock stronger?
(I know, you are an engineer and your book says...)
Thru-bolt gun stocks break easier than any other. Stocks don't break from recoil, they break from dropping. A genuinely sound piece of advise would be, "Don't drop your gun with a thru-bolt stock as it will break easier than your double gun stock. But please don't drop that one either.
Through bolt stocks are much stronger if you epoxy the through bolt, although that creates an interesting situation should you ever need to take the gun apart
Otherwise, the engineering principle (one of two that I know);
You cannot make something stronger by removing material from it remains in effect.
Jim
