Heirloom Rifle Project - Wood?

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Trident

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I'm building an heirloom rifle, and I'd like some suggestions as to which wood to look for. The action is stainless, so I'd like to stay with a darker wood and not something like 'Quilted Maple'

Some samples I've seen are:

California Claro (with feather crotch)
Bastogne Walnut and
Myrtle.

Am I overlooking anything more beautiful ? ? ?


Suggestions would be appreciated, pictures would be a blessing.

Thanks
 
If you can find an old, old, old piece of American Walnut - it has a dark grain and subtle shading - quite gorgeous. A friend found a piece off a wrecked table from (about) 1850. Damn fine piece after the smith was done the carving.
 
There are tons of different woods out there and many of them are astonishingly beautiful.

Walnuts are the traditional woods of choice for stocking rifles and both the american and french walnuts can be very nice - it depends on each piece of wood individually. When you see a gun with "select grade" wood, that is exactly what it means. An experienced stock maker has picked an exceptional piece of wood for that stock, based on it's characteristics like quality, density, and figure. It takes an experienced eye to select a good piece of would for this in the rough, although the results are evident even to the untutored eye.

I'd reccommend going to a local wood specialty store - should be one in your yellow pages - and seeing what they have in stock sized blanks.

Then compare this with what you can find on the internet for finished pieces before you decide.
 
Wood is a very personal thing, what may look good to one persons may not be so attractive to another. If you are building a heirloom rifle the final choice will be based on your budget and not on the type of wood since the higher grades in most woods are usually very attractive. Some woods would be more to your liking like the Walnuts but the lower grades won't suit an heirloom project. The higher the grade the higher the cost of the blank, expect to pay upwards of $500 for something half decent in the better walnuts, like a good dry figured English Walnut. I'm not shure what your project budget is but a really good top quality Circassian or English Walnut Blank plus a good stockmaker will easily go $2000+. My choice would be either Circassian or English Walnut. I have a Myrtlewood stock tucked away somewhere but it is not dark wood, more golden in color. The Bastogne and Claro will give you the best bang for the buck as far as figure but they are not considered a top wood, generally softer wood when compared to a good Circassian or English Walnut.
bigbull
 
Stay away from Myrtlewood - it warps easily. claro is nice and light but doesn;t take checkering very well. It IS an easy way to get great figure at reasonable cost. It can also be a tad softer then black walnut, so I'd recomend glass bedding the action for any larger caliber.

Black walnut is probably the best gunstock wood going, but often has very little figure.

California English and Bastogne are great compromise woods. English and Cicasian are best, but again are EXTREMELY pricey for nice figure.
 
Thank you ALL.

Thanks to Mauser98. I just ordered a Circassian Walnut Exhibition from Denli.

732nn.jpg
 
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