Wood for gun stocks
These observations have been inspired by some recent posts concerning gunstocks.
It seems to me that there are a number of woods that could be used to make gun stocks. Ash comes to mind. It has a straight grain and is reasonably durable; baseball bats are made from it although recently a number have been from maple becuase they last longer.
Why not hickory? If you think oak is hard, wait until you get a piece of this stuff. A lot of saw mills will not buy a hickory log.
It seems that some of those mauser rifles that Mitchel's Mausers have been selling have a stock made from teak! That stuff is expensive. It should be an interesting story about how that came about. A lot of teak lumber seems to go a make wooden boats. It is also probably harder than hickory.
J. Patrick Tatum
It seems to me that there are a number of woods that could be used to make gun stocks. Ash comes to mind. It has a straight grain and is reasonably durable; baseball bats are made from it although recently a number have been from maple becuase they last longer.
Why not hickory? If you think oak is hard, wait until you get a piece of this stuff. A lot of saw mills will not buy a hickory log.
It seems that some of those mauser rifles that Mitchel's Mausers have been selling have a stock made from teak! That stuff is expensive. It should be an interesting story about how that came about. A lot of teak lumber seems to go a make wooden boats. It is also probably harder than hickory.
J. Patrick Tatum
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I have noticed, through the years, that the stocks of some rifles is labeled as "walnut finished hardwood" or just hardwood. Most likely what is the wood? I assume it is not maple or walnut.
J. Patrick Tatum0 -
Turns out the Mitchells Mausers ( and the Yugo Mausers in general) are NOT made of teak! It is some sort of Beech variety from around the former Yugoslavia that is in no way to be confused with Teak. Have checked many other forums on this one and found it to be undeniably true...plus I got to looking at mine and comparing it to some of the 8 different pieces of Teak furniture I have and there is just no compison of any kind!
One of the reasons that stockmakers don't use woods like Hickory is that it is TOO hard and wears tools out like they were made from tin! That in itself is enough to make them avoid mass producing stocks from them alone!
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I suppose any wood could be used. Savage and mossberg have used maple for years and a lot of war time guns from different countries I seem to remember they used fir. Ash could be used, but has some of the same problems as oak, hard to hold detail, and has a more open fiber. It is also somewhat heavy, a good reason to use it for bats when mass and tensile strength are important. Look at the wood the chinese used in their AK'a and SKS's. Probably chinese elm. But it really isn't much to look at and about as close to going down the the lumber yard and using a 2x4. 0 -
I have been building gunstocks for years. My favorit is Maple, easy to work with and has all kinds of figuer. Several of my personal rifles have tiger maple stocks on them or quelted maple stocks. Claro Walnut is the standard for stocks. Black Walnut is has good grain but sometimes it can be hard to cut with your inleting tools. Hickory and oak would probably be hard to keep from twisting, not to mention when it has dried it would probably take a jack hammer to inlet the wood. I have not had the prevlage of useing Ash.
Hornet0 -
Hornet good to hear from someone who knows what he is talking about, a voice of experience. 0
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