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Right you are! :stir: :stir: :stir:

Another one would be persimmon. Also know as "white ebony" It's not particularly stable, but is very hard, and a little heavier than maple. I have never seen the lumber available, (or heard of it used contemporarily) but it used to be used widely in golf clubs back when woods were woods :eek:ff .
 
I've seen one muzzle loader single shot pistol stocked in Osage Orange and it was.............Orange. Almost no figure and felt like it had lead in the core it was so heavy.
I believe I've read that some muzzle loading stocks used to be made of ash which does not have much figure but is a quite strong and a serviceable stock wood. Mike D.
 
M.D. said:
Were Hawken rifles usually stocked in maple or walnut? For some reason I thought most of them were walnut stocked. Mike D.
99% of the surviving Hawkens are stocked in maple and this goes hand in hand with their known orders for stock wood which are all maple.
In fact several of the recognized Hawken experts such as Don Stith believe the few Hawken rifles stocked in walnut such as the Modena rifle were product of the Hoffman-Campbell shop, a sort of subsidiary to the Hawken shop.
 
:haha: OSAGE ORANGE....!!! OH NO!!
mom has a BIG specimen on her place.....oh no....here we go~ i need to see if sister still has her chain saw~ i may just cut it and make blanks........ :stir: :stir: :stir:
 
Osage Orange.....now that is one wood I would never pick for a gunstock. Not because it would not make a good gun stock but because I have worked with it and it is messy. By that, I mean the sawdust will put a yellow stain on anything with which it comes in contact and the wood will dull blades used to cut it. Personally, I don't like the odor, either. I know it makes good bows and has been used for such for many years. I feel sorry for the boyers. Just a personal bias. I have serious doubts that it is found on more than a few, if any, original guns. I wonder what the thoughts of the maker of that pistol were after using Osage Orange to make the stock? :hmm: Oh, and another thing, until Osage Orange has had time for the wood to oxidize and turn brown, it is one really ugly yellow wood. Once it has oxidized to brown, though, it is not all that bad looking. Just not one of my favorite woods. :shake:
 
This gets hashed over and over every month or so. When the discussion turns to "other stock woods". Basically it appears to just stem from the desire to be different. But, essentially, good stock woods are limited to the well known stock woods. Maple, walnut, cherry, birch, beech and ash. Even among these, not all pieces of wood are suitable. Walnut and cherry particularly will vary WIDELY in quality. SOME cherry is as hard as sugar maple, most is not, often it is soft as butter, and unsuitable for anything. But given good pieces, each of these types of wood are strong, hard, durable and stable enough to be gun stocks. Other types of wood may be strong and hard, but so unstable, like Oak, that they are no good for stocks. PERHAPS other woods like mulberry or hornbeam or hophornbeam or dogwood might make decent stock woods.... and if you can find a piece big enough, by all means, give it a shot!!! Hickory has been used...well, maybe once! It is almost TOO hard, and it is known as being unstable. It can be quite beautiful wood, though.

Mostly, "other woods" are not used because they simply are not good for stocks. Not hard enough, not strong enough, not stable enough, etc. (people often ask about woods like sycamore, or poplar, or even yellow pine and cedar! :shocked2: ) Or, of course, not available in large enough pieces or large enough quantity. Sometimes, even technically suitable woods aren't used just because they're so darn plain or ugly! :haha:
 
what do ya'll mean when you say a wood is not stable?

{Yes, my interest is fueled by a desire to be different and ornery.}
I figure somewhere along the line just about every wood that could be used was tried by someone somewhere. "there is no new thing under the sun" it is written...
I can just see some old time craftsman getting ahold of some odd wood that came in on a ship and giving it a go just to see. That is the nature of innovation. To imagine that no one in the past eras we are considering had a mahogany, teak or other exotic wood stocked gun while everyone else had a common wood just doesn't feel believable.
 
The ash we had on our farm that I cut up and split for fire wood had almost no figure as I remember and was plain as tongue depressor wood.
I groan now at all the hard woods we cut up and split to heat our farm house as I was growing up.
Red and white oak, hickory , elm , ash, maple and black walnut. We still have five huge sugar maples that were planted in our door yard at the farm over a hundred years ago. Mike D.
 
Where would a gunsmith have gotten a 7 foot long, 3 inch thick, 10 inch wide board of mahogany in the 18th or early 19th century? Mahogany and perhaps a few other "exotic" woods were imported to Europe and America for use in fine furniture, as was the fashion (frankly, I don't find mahogany to be a very attractive wood at all...), but I can't see this expensive wood having been imported in large enough pieces to make stocks out of. The wood we had here was readily available, more than suitable, cheap, and every bit as attractive as "exotic" woods, if not more so.

Stability refers to how much the wood will move with changes in humidity. Expansion, contraction and warping. Oak is famously unstable, and twists and warps badly. Quarter sawn oak is more stable, due to grain orientation, and that it why it is more prized by furniture makers.
 
M.D. said:
The ash we had on our farm that I cut up and split for fire wood had almost no figure as I remember and was plain as tongue depressor wood.
.


Are you sure that was ash??? Ash has prominent growth rings, and usually a nice yellowish color (the heartwood is slightly more brownish). Though it normally doesn't have colorful streaks, it is sometimes curly, and definitely doesn't look like tongue depressor wood! :grin:

Ash is a very interesting wood, and one of my favorite trees. I find the wood has some amazing properties. I have a stock blank in curly ash that eventually I'll get around to using. I have started, and am 3/4ths finished with a pistol I stocked in Ash. Neat wood.
 
Cynthialee said:
I can just see some old time craftsman getting ahold of some odd wood that came in on a ship and giving it a go just to see. That is the nature of innovation. To imagine that no one in the past eras we are considering had a mahogany, teak or other exotic wood stocked gun while everyone else had a common wood just doesn't feel believable.

Actually Cynthia, I suspect that would have been a very very rare occurrence. Old-time gunsmiths were building guns for a living not as a recreational hobby and I doubt they would risk hours of work, time, and money on wood that was a mystery to them. Unless a customer brought the wood and paid for it to be made into a gun, I doubt many smiths strayed from the norms (maple, walnut, and cherry). Certainly, there still exist a few 18th and 19th century American guns that were stocked in ash, oak,and such but they are very rare and may have been driven by local necessity rather than choice. In Europe, fruitwoods like apple and pear were commonly used in addtion to maple and walnut, but many of those guns were lavishly decorated almost completely hiding the wood. Indeed, valuing and exposing beautiful figured wood on gunstocks really did not become popular until the mid-17th century.

dave
 
It's fun to speculate on what could have been. Not much evidence for unusual woods being used on originals.

For a heavy target rifle, an over the log rifle, black locust would be a homely, heavy, stable choice. But as Stophel said there are many reasons to not use some woods. For some, the wood properties may be good but it's rare to get good logs big enough for stocks. Some are plain to ugly. Some are unstable and warp or swell when wet. That can bind your ramrod, trigger and even the lock. Some are soft and dent, or split easily, or are hard to work because of grain structure.
 
All I know is what my father said it was and being a man of the earth (dairy farmer) I'm sure he knew of what he spoke.
You have to remember we weren't viewing grain or structure for gun stock wood but rather running the various cut lengths through or tractor mounted buzz saw and splitting them into chunks that would fit through the furnace door. I don't recall it splitting hard either which would also indicate rather straight grain.
We had a fence row along the apple orchard of Osage orange. Our fence posts in the lane south of the barn where all Osage and the wood pillars in the basement of our farm house are as well. Both have been in for a century and the ones under the house are still going strong with out rotting. Mike D.
 
Ash is the best firewood I ever used, and I used allot of it. Cuts like oak, splits easier that oak, & burns as hot as oak, but doesn't pop like oak & other hardwoods. When dry it is a very clean burning wood.

I have a couple of blanks of curly ash put back, and one I have the barrel in & rough shaped into a Tenn. rifle. Should make a beaut if I can ever get to work on it.

Keith Lisle
 
The king of all gunstock woods is English Walnut or European walnut. The next best is Sugar Maple.
This question has been contemplated for hundreds of years. There are lots of other woods that will work but fall short of these two for one reason or another. There are many properties to consider. Weight, strength, stability, durability,
workability, grain, density, etc - etc.
 
it is one really ugly yellow wood.

Man-O-man! :shocked2:
Thems almost fightin' words. :cursing: Really, before OO turns brown, that bright yellow/orange color makes it one of the prettiest woods there is. :wink:
I have a supply of OO and love to make small projects from it.
As a rifle stock though, not a good choice unless it is for a bench rest rifle.
 
Stophel said:
M.D. said:
The ash we had on our farm that I cut up and split for fire wood had almost no figure as I remember and was plain as tongue depressor wood.
.


Are you sure that was ash??? Ash has prominent growth rings, and usually a nice yellowish color (the heartwood is slightly more brownish). Though it normally doesn't have colorful streaks, it is sometimes curly, and definitely doesn't look like tongue depressor wood! :grin:

Ash is a very interesting wood, and one of my favorite trees. I find the wood has some amazing properties. I have a stock blank in curly ash that eventually I'll get around to using. I have started, and am 3/4ths finished with a pistol I stocked in Ash. Neat wood.
..................................................................................

Just arrived..curly ash from Freddie Harrison..figure full length 49" bbl
Got a soft spot for curly ash! I've had great field wear experience. It's HC too!... Bonus! :grin:
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