why not oak?

[jbg]

Please excuse my ignorance on the subject, but I have often wondered why oak is never used for a rifle stock. It makes great furniture and to my untutored eye it seems like a dense, hard wood. Can anyone educate me?

 

[Stophel]

It's not used basically because it's HEAVY and it is EXTREMELY unstable. Lay an oak board down and you can almost watch it walk across the floor from its twisting and warping...

 

[Swampman]

I breaks pretty easy as a stock wood and it's very hard to work. I've seen one stock made from it, and the fellow said he'd never make another.

 

[tat]

Some species of oak has an acid that will eat away at metal. I am not sure which one though.

Tommy

 

[TANSTAAFL]

Let me count the why nots, on second thought, never mind.

 

[crgabel]

Tommy,
All oak has a high acid content. I also think that the open grain structure would be weak in the lock area.
My 2cents
Craig

 

[Brasilikilt]

I work at a shop which sells domestic and exotic hardwoods...alot of the customers that have talked to me about white oak say that it's difficult to work, it's tough on tool blades......and yes it is quite heavy

 

[Slowpoke]

unstable, it warps, and unattractive. Besides that, it's fantastic.

 

[RedFeather]

I've seen it used about twice. I think the Stevens .22 semi-auto "birdcage" rifle used it from what I could tell - don't know any other wood that has grain and color like that. The other was a Walther 55 training air rifle. Apparently, they felt English oak was just the ticket for that model.

It is hard to carve and the grain is coarse (which may be why it's hard to carve). Not a good candidate for this.

How come we don't see more American black cherry? I should think that would make a fantastic stock. My bedroom furniture sure would if it were a bit thicker. 'Course, that's a staright course to divorce.

 

[Bolink654]

Ok, what about hickory?
I can get hickory all ready to make into hammer handles (waxed ends, kiln dried, everything) and in large enough peices to make a stock out of. And cheap as well.

 

[brubincam]

i have had oak so hard while splitting it with an ax it would throw sparks,,,also had oak boards that to nail them you had to drill a hole first,,, :yakyak: :yakyak: :yakyak: thats my NICKELS worth,,,

 

[Henry]

Long time ago , oak had been used for
match lock guns .... and soon abandoned
when other locks needed more complicated inlet work
and the rest spike was discarted .

Beech , was used as replacement for walnut
on some war production Lee Enfield , so was teck

Pear wood , sometime dyed to look like ebony
was popular for wheel lock guns . Most black
piano keys are really dyed pear wood , as well as
most violin pegs .

 

[jbg]

Thanks, guys, now I know.

 

[Stophel]

Hickory is about as heavy as oak, and even harder. I believe it is harder than the steel in my chisels!

 

[Norskie]

Both hickory and oak are ring porous. In other words they have pores in the growth rings that travel the full length of the growth ring
I used to work as a millwright and had a machine whose motors and transmissions were mounted on a varnished oak plank. Even with the varnish that piece of oak would be filled with machine oil at the end of each quarter when we did teardown.
We'd typically stand it in a drain pan overnight and there'd be a good cup of oil come out of a plank 5 foot by one foot by 3 inches thick!

 

[Bookie]

Just for the record, Baxter Bean (of the Bean rifle building family) made some Tennessee rifles out of oak in the 1800s. Red oak to be exact. Cheers, Bookie

 

[Mike Brooks]

Just for the record, Baxter Bean (of the Bean rifle building family) made some Tennessee rifles out of oak in the 1800s. Red oak to be exact. Cheers, Bookie

That's odd, I've never seen one. Could you point me in the right direction where I could see one?

 

[Wehrmacht]

All 'yall can knock oak all you want to,and for sure it's marginal for a stock,BUT....civilization as we know it would not exist had it not been for OAK :shocked2:.

Oak has fed mankind,provided shelter,made his boats and ships,fed wildlife which again fed man, provided dye for ink, tannin to tan hides, provided incentive for mankind to leave the Black Sea/Caspian Sea area and expand into the forests of Europe,etc etc! No other tree has influenced mankind nearly as much as OAK :thumbsup:.

 

[Bob Gular]

I didn't see where anyone was "knocking" oak. It's a fine wood with many uses and the only one used in making whiskey barrels(Scotch and Bourbon),but it just doesn't make a good gunstock.

 

[coehornboy]

I used oak on my first matchlock build (photos on the pre-flintlock section). When trying to inlet, it has a tendency to splinter and for the grain to do wacky things. I also heard that it splinter's easilly if banged or dropped.

I had to use bedding compound in the barrel channel to hide some of the glitches (the chisels would go in directions I never expected).

The oak is also heavy, and adds considerable weight to a full-stock gun.

:v