I have used the ramin wood rod blanks from Track of the Wolf. I've had no problems with them. The wood is dense, tough, and elastic, and it takes a good finish. It seems to have a slight sheen to it that you don't see as much in hickory, but if someone handed me a ramin rod blank and said it was hickory, I would probably take his word for it. I believe (but can't confirm) that some of the cheap, imported "hand forged throwing 'hawks" have been sold with ramin handles.
I also looked up ramin a while back as brother Two Feathers did, and noted the CITES listing. Track must have acquired quite a stock of it, if they are still selling it, because I looked it up some time back while trying to find out what it was.
I don't necessarily think ramin is any better than hickory, but for me it has worked just as well. There are a number of woods which will work. Fred Stutzenberger did a nice article about ramrods for
Muzzle Blasts Online (
Ramrod Rights & Wrongs), and he included this interesting
Table of Load-Bearing Capacities of Native Woods. Interestingly, southern yellow pine compares very favorably with a lot of the domestic hardwoods, and black locust was the best of all.
Ramin is not the only "foreign" wood used for ramrods. I know that
West Indian lancewood (
Oxandra lanceolata… not the ornamental lancewood from New Zealand) was used for ramrods on a lot of British trade guns shipped to the United States and Canada. I have no idea where you would find any for ramrods now, though.
And then there's whalebone, which was also used in the past... Good luck finding any of
that!
Best regards,
Notchy Bob