Best Wood for Gun Stock? / Gun History
Greg M. Gonnerman
I've recently taken possesion of a single shot "Meridan Firearms"
rifle, chambered for 22lr.
First Question: This gun needs a new stock... What's the absolute
best wood for gun stocks?
Second Question: Does anyone know the history of this gun? My
gunsmith only has Meridan Firearms listed as a
manufacturer of shotguns for mailorder. The gun
is probably about 100 years old.
Thanks,
Greg
Larry Schuette
#
#
#I've recently taken possesion of a single shot "Meridan Firearms"
#rifle, chambered for 22lr.
#
#
#First Question: This gun needs a new stock... What's the absolute
# best wood for gun stocks?
#
Best wood? I've seen Flintlock rifles with incredibly nice stocks
made from; curly maple (sugar or red maple), black walnut, and
black cherry. I would rank them in the order listed. The main
problem with maple is the tight grain structure requires a nitric
acid stain. But, if you're carving your own stock, that should
not be a problem.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"When reaching a stalemate, win with a technique the enemy does
not expect." Miyamoto Musashi
Lawrence C. Schuette schu...@nrl.navy.mil
Peter Prun
Brian Woodroffe <b...@hpqtdla.sqf.hp.com> wrote:
#>This gun needs a new stock... What's the absolute best wood
#>for gun stocks?
#
#Walnut, european Walnut is the best period. However it's so expensive
#that it is only usually used on 'carriage trade' guns; ie Purdey's,
#Holland & Holland and the like.
#Beech is probably best value for money.
Does anyone know why you *never* see oak or hickory used for a stock?
Oak is strong enough for furniture and hickory is the wood commonly
used for sledge hammer handles.
Pete
HENRY E SCHAFFER
Greg M. Gonnerman <Greg.Go...@ebay.sun.com> wrote:
#
#I've recently taken possesion of a single shot "Meridan Firearms"
#rifle, chambered for 22lr.
#
#Second Question: Does anyone know the history of this gun? My
# gunsmith only has Meridan Firearms listed as a
# manufacturer of shotguns for mailorder. The gun
# is probably about 100 years old.
Flayderman's Guide, 4/e, lists two companies - but both with different
spellings. Meriden Firearms Co, Meriden, Conn. 1900-1915, made and
imported shotguns. Meriden Mfg Co, of Meriden Conn made Triplett &
Scott Repeating Carbines, 1864-5 which were 50 cal rimfire. These are
different companies.
--henry schaffer
Quoc Tuan Pham
#Does anyone know why you *never* see oak or hickory used for a stock?
#Oak is strong enough for furniture and hickory is the wood commonly
#used for sledge hammer handles.
For gunstocks, you must use a wood that is:
- dimensionally stable (the rate of skrinkage or expansion depending
on the temperature and moisture condition),
- structurally stable (whether it is easy to crack or be dented, etc.),
- easy to work with (e.g. easy to carve, easy to put fine details like
checkering, etc.)
- and has some instrinsic beauty (e.g. feather figure in crotch walnut).
Walnut is THE best wood for gunstock.
Mike Jewell
:
:
: Does anyone know why you *never* see oak or hickory used for a stock?
: Oak is strong enough for furniture and hickory is the wood commonly
: used for sledge hammer handles.
I saw an old Winchester '73 carbine which had the rear stock made of
oak. I'm sure it was a restock job as the forarm was the original walnut.
But the rear stock seemed almost as old as the gun and had held up
just fine. Gets the job done.
Mike J.
S.J. Orth
# :
# :
# : Does anyone know why you *never* see oak or hickory used for a stock?
# : Oak is strong enough for furniture and hickory is the wood commonly
# : used for sledge hammer handles.
Peter:
Oak and Hickory are excelent woods for furniture and hammer handles,
respectively, but not so great for a gun stock. Both are *very* strong and
hard, especially Hickory. Unfortunately, both are also very heavy, and
most people like guns to be light, so that they are easy to carry.
Walnut is an excellent stock material because it possesses a very good
strength to weight ratio. It is also reasonably stable relative to
moisture content and temperature. All of these reasons are why even battle
rifles (M1 Garands, M14s, etc.) used Walnut. It wasn't because it is
pretty.
As a semi-professional woodworker, I also know that Walnut is very easy to
work with. Oak tends to chip out when machine worked due to the varying
hardness between the closed grain and the open grained bands, where as
Walnut is of nearly equal hardness throughout. I would hate to try to
checker Oak. Maple is also very consistent in hardness. Hickory is a
****bitch**** to work with, and as far as I'm concerned, it should continue
to be used for hammer handles. I prefer wood handled hammers to
fiberglass.
Hope this helps. Enjoy!!
Steve
Marc Cassidy
## Peter Prun (pp...@lookout.ecte.uswc.uswest.com) wrote:
## :
## :
## : Does anyone know why you *never* see oak or hickory used for a stock?
## : Oak is strong enough for furniture and hickory is the wood commonly
## : used for sledge hammer handles.
#
#As a semi-professional woodworker, I also know that Walnut is very easy to
#work with. Oak tends to chip out when machine worked due to the varying
#hardness between the closed grain and the open grained bands, where as
#Walnut is of nearly equal hardness throughout. I would hate to try to
#checker Oak. Maple is also very consistent in hardness. Hickory is a
#****bitch**** to work with, and as far as I'm concerned, it should continue
#to be used for hammer handles.
What about cherry? It is closed grained which would make it consistant. I've
never done any carving in cherry but it is fairly easy to work (easier than hard maple
anyway). It is also very common and less expensive that walnut. I think it is
pretty enough especially after it has been exposed to light for a number of years.
Marc
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Marc Cassidy
Motorola Inc.
ma...@ecs.comm.mot.com
Mark Thayer
#Peter Prun <pp...@lookout.ecte.uswc.uswest.com> writes:
#
#
##Does anyone know why you *never* see oak or hickory used for a stock?
##Oak is strong enough for furniture and hickory is the wood commonly
##used for sledge hammer handles.
#
#For gunstocks, you must use a wood that is:
#- dimensionally stable (the rate of skrinkage or expansion depending
#on the temperature and moisture condition),
#- structurally stable (whether it is easy to crack or be dented, etc.),
#- easy to work with (e.g. easy to carve, easy to put fine details like
#checkering, etc.)
#- and has some instrinsic beauty (e.g. feather figure in crotch walnut).
#
#Walnut is THE best wood for gunstock.
#
Walnut is the traditional choice, and it does meet all the
requirements: dimensionally stable, strong, hard.
The problem is that finding good walnut is getting damned tough. I'm
convinced that pieces that would be used as kindling in the
cabinetmaker's wood stove are now rated "First" or "Select".
Some alternatives that meet the practical requirements are beech
(often used for cabinetmaker's workbench tops; it's *got* to be
stable), maple (just as strong, a little harder to finish) and maybe
birch (believe it or not, a lot of "rock maple" furniture sold in this
country is actually birch).
Talk to a local cabinetmaker; ask what's good in your area. Good
luck!
mark
Pat McNally
math...@cs.unm.edu writes:
#Some alternatives that meet the practical requirements are beech
#(often used for cabinetmaker's workbench tops; it's *got* to be
#stable), maple (just as strong, a little harder to finish) and maybe
#birch (believe it or not, a lot of "rock maple" furniture sold in this
#country is actually birch).
Many of the original stocks for Garands were yellow birch.
Pat McNally
Jerry Roe
#: Oak is strong enough for furniture and hickory is the wood commonly
#: used for sledge hammer handles.
#:
# I saw an old Winchester '73 carbine which had the rear stock made of
# oak. I'm sure it was a restock job as the forarm was the original walnut.
# But the rear stock seemed almost as old as the gun and had held up
# just fine. Gets the job done.
# Mike J.
Oak is hard to work, especially when you have to do intricate operations like
stock inletting. I'd imagine hickory has the same problem -- it's a *tough*
wood also. And oak has a tendency to dull tool blades pretty quickly.
Given its rather plain appearance, weight and difficulty of working, I'm
not surprised we don't see it on guns.
Jerry Roe
j...@nsc.nsc.com
l...@cbvox1.att.com
article on woods recently. It stated about 95% of walnut produced
in the US goes to make gun stocks. What percentage of gun stocks
are made of walnut wasn't stated.
--
Larry Cipriani, l.v.ci...@att.com or attmail!lcipriani