Apple as a Stock Wood.

I have an old apple tree on my property,producing poor fruit. I think I once read that American pioneers used apple tree wood, among many other woods, for stocks on their muskets. Is apple tree wood any good? Strength, hardness, checkering etc.?

Oooh Absolutely! It's wonderful to carve and takes Aquafortis stain great! I have a New England style half stocked Squirrel rifle Roy built me, stocked in Apple. It's a beautiful stock.

If you can save some and dry some blanks by all means do it. :thumbsup:

Here I'll link the build documentaion instead of just the finished pic's so you can see the wood in different stages,
http://www.nimrodsplace.com/nesquirrelrifle1.html

From the links I got Googleing "Apple + Wood + drying" it seems that apple is difficult to dry and will warp.

You might want to read thru the comments in this link and try Googleing for more information about apple before going to all of the work of getting it cut into boards. http://www.woodweb.com/knowledge_base/Drying_Apple_Wood.html

Zonie is right, it is also very hard and will dull tools, including rasps. That being said, it is beautiful once finished. I used to use it on small items, mostly knife handles and small turnings.

I haven't worked with apple wood a whole lot, though have some experience with it from non-gun projects. Apple is a hard wood and it is difficult to produce a straight piece of wood with it. You tend to find it twisted, either naturally, or if not from that then from the drying/curing process. If you can produce a straight piece of apple wood, it is quite hard and difficult to work, though very durable.

I didn't have any problems with how it worked... maybe all apple wood is not created equal. We had 2 apple stocks in the shop, they both were a pleasure to work with. :v

I'd love to have an apple stock blank. The coloring can be spectacular.

Thanks for the advice. If I fell the tree, I will prepare to dry the blanks as per what was written.

I have done two applewood stocks, one for a New England style fowler, and one on a smooth-bore early trade gun. the first was from a tree on my parents property and I cut and dried the the wood, wood was moderately hard and tough carving. The second stock was from wood a friend gave me and was not of consistent hardness throughout. The thing that I had difficulty with was getting a good stain color when finishing the stocks (I prefer a nice rich red/brown or nut/brown color). Both of the stocks tended to turn a less than desirable orange tint with alcohol based stains. I ended up taking artist colors and mixing with turpentine to get anything close to a decent color. I would highly reccomend testing some of the wood with various stains prior to getting too far along with a project gun with applewood. Go find yourself a nice chunk of cherry if you want to try fruit wood (just my opinion).

Apple wood is super for carving and was used in Europe for some high art rifles but mostly pistols. It is hard to dry without warping. As said before. It makes super good wood for patterns.

Not trying to highjack this thread but, I was wondering if dogwood can be used, or ever was used for gun stocks? Thanks!

I know one thing, there sure isn't a whole lot of it out there. Couple of years ago when I went looking for it, I was only able to find two blanks. One from Dunlop and one from Pecatonica river. Only one was a full stock blank and that was for a 38" barrel if I remember right. I'd grab another Apple blank today if I could find one.

Dogwood is very twisty- if that's a word-- and doesn't show a lot of difference in grain from summer and winter growth. It would be difficult to find a piece long enough to use in a gunstock, that would dry straight enough. It has been used for tool handles, as its a good tough wood. But, because of the twist in the wood grain, short pieces are the norm for wood working projects.

Take a look at Pear, and Persimmon tree wood for gunstocks.

I am going to throw this out for thought: I live in the Northeastern US. We have numerous apple orchard with a number of varieties of apples. I would bet that not all apple wood acts the same way as far as carving, turning, staining, etc, and in fact is highly variable. Just like the various types of walnut and maple carve and stain differently. I would also bet that some of those high art carved European rifles may actually be stocked in pear fruitwood. It is tough too tell pear from apple wood sometimes, but I have used pear for some antique furniture restoration and I felt it carved/worked better than apple. I prefer applewood for turning wooden bowls and burning in my wood stove, just my two cents worth :yakyak: