What woods were used for stocks? Besides walnut?

[Mustang Gregg]

Durin' the 1870's through the 1890's----Besides walnut?
I figger the gunsmith section might be the place to post.  ?

[Silver Creek Slim]

Black locust.  Just kiddin'.

Slim

[St. George]

Walnut was the preferred wood.

On some flintlocks - you'd see Maple, but not that often, and once in awhile, Gumwood would show up, but Walnut was strong and attractive.

Walnut's grain worked well for load-bearing during recoil, and was straight-grained at the wrist of the stock, since that was where the brunt of the recoil was initially dumped.

After WWII - the Arsenals would use Birch as replacement wood for Garands and Carbines, since its properties were similar to those found in Walnut.

Vaya,

Scouts Out!

[Advertising]

[Mustang Gregg]

Thanks, "Black Locust" Slim   & Bob:

I knew about the birch in them Garands. 
We got a M1 NM (which is also marked USMC) for Pa on Father's Day many moons ago.  It has a very nice birch stock.

Was sycamore used back in the 1800's?

Much obliged,
MG

[Driftwood Johnson]

Walnut has always been the best wood for most gunstocks.

For pistol grips, it really doesn't matter very much. The grip is just a small handle beween the steel and the hand. It doesn't get stressed very much. The cross grain section is not very large and the shock of recoil isn't going to damage it much.

Long guns on the other hand need a long thin piece of wood to take up the shock of recoil. A long thin piece will be much more susceptable to bending stress. Walnut is ideal. It is strong. it is not as hard as oak or maple so it is easy to shape with hand tools. Ash is an ideal resiliant wood. That's why it is use for baseball bats. But ash, like oak, has a strong open grain and is suceptable to splitting. I have never heard of a gunstock being made of ash.

Maple was fairly common with craftsman type gunsmiths building rifles one at a time, lock, stock, and barrel. Highly figured maple was prized for its beauty.

But once mass production came along, with template following machines to mass produce gunstocks, walnut pretty much became the standard. Sycamore is pretty similar to maple in it's properties. I've never heard of sycamore being used for gunstocks.

Frankly, I'm a little bit surprised to hear the bit about birch. Birch is pretty much viewed as a second rate wood in the hardwood world. It's properties are pretty similar to maple. Quite hard and durable. It seldom has any exciting figure at all. Birch was often cut into 4 foot long bolts and used to mass produce small wooden parts for industry. Shoe lasts for the shoe industry were usually made of birch. Clothespins too. Come to think of it, if you needed a no nonsense, durable, if a little bit boring wood, birch was probably a good choice for gunstocks.

[Delmonico]

Driftwood, it depends on the type of birch, some make good gunstocks if you don't mind that they don't take stain well.

Sycamore was what Winchester used on a lot of inexpensive guns in the 60's and 70's the Model 670 comes to mind.

Also don't forget cherry was popular at one time, some muzzle-loaders from back east used it also a friend I used to hunt with had a Griffen&Howe 03 with a cherry stock.  Also I am 99% sure the Chinese SKS's use elm, sure looks like it.  Some of the old presentation guns like the Henry given to Abe Lincoln had rosewood stocks.

[Forty Rod]

Seems a lot of handgun grips were rosewood...some standard, some optional.

[Delmonico]

Just remembered, Gumwood was used on 1906 Winchester pumps, an economy version of the 1890.

[Guns Garrett]

A lot of woods have been used (even white pine, down South) but as a general rule, walnut, maple and cherry were the most common, as well as apple, chestnut and birch.  Birch is cheap, plentiful and works fairly easily, but is rather bland.  I think beech was used some, too.  Some of the fancy old presentation rifles had stocks of mahogany, tulipwood (magnolia), even ebony.  I saw one modern stock made out of Osage Orange ("Hedge Apple" or Bois d' Arc) - That doesn't even make good firewood, really; not in a fireplace anyway.  Burns really hot, but spits a lot.  You can get a stove cherry red with it.  Great fence posts though!  How do you carve or even chisel that stuff?

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy again

Yes, I seem to recall reading about cherry being used.

Gumwood huh? I guess I'll have to take a close look at my Dad's old Winchester '06 and try to figure out what the wood is. I know it ain't walnut.

Yes, Rosewood was used for some fancy presentation guns, but I thought we were talking about run of the mill stuff here. Ivory was used for some fancy presentation rifles too, but we're talking about wood, right?

Elm has a miserable interlocked grain. Very difficult to work with hand tools. But I guess power stock reproducing equipment wouldn't mind. Most of the Elm in the USA died during the elm blight during the 1920s and 1930s. A lot of fallen timber was turned into lumber but when it was all gone, it was all gone. I remember seeing a lot of split rail fences made from elm when I was a kid in NJ. They were pretty well rotted away by then.

Pistol grips have always been made of anything. Easy to find small pieces to make pistol grips. Back in the 1970s S&W was supplying Goncalo Alves grips on all their high end guns.

[Mustang Gregg]

Gumwood, huh? 
Where does that grow?  Back east or in the South?
MG

[Delmonico]

http://www.mv.com/ipusers/env/bgum.html

Try this.

[Mustang Gregg]

Thanks, Pard!

[St. George]

Birch was used on both Garand and Carbine replacement stocks, as mentioned.

The properties make it somewhat desireable for a Match shooter, since it won't retain moisture the same way that Walnut does - further assisting in maintaining the zero.

My first DCM M1 has an all-Birch, matched stock set - buttstock, upper and lower handguards - with the National Defense 'Eagle' stock cartouche.

The weird 'orange' color certainly makes it stand out on the rack at the Range.

The Carbine stocks were sometimes referred to as 'Parade' stocks by the old Air Police of years gone by.

The color - when hand-rubbed - gave a 'golden' hue and their carbines had a white sling - making for a distinctive look during the years when LeMay ran the show.

No doubt about it - Walnut's by far the prettier of them all - but other woods had/have their uses.

Vaya,

Scouts Out!



 

[Ransom Gaer]

Driftwood,

Concerning the use of ash as a gunstock wood there is a picture in Track Of the Wolf's current catalog of an early Tennessee or Southern Mountain flintlock in ash.  Now it could be that the builder just decided to use ash(the rifle is a modern recreation) or I suppose it is possible that some longrifles were built that way in Tennessee because it was available.  I think curly maple looks better.

Ransom Gaer