High grade wood

[dozer]

I have a question about the higher (upgrades) of wood. To begin with, I've been a cabinet maker for almost 30 years. Highly figured wood is more prone to a variety of problems from checks to warp and splitting.

I plan on ordering a gun soon and I'm wondering about the long term of thousands of rounds (45-90 or 45-100). I want high grade wood. How do they hold up?

[Omaha Poke]

dozer, I have a couple of rifles with high grade wood, and a number with fancy and semi-fancy wood. Generally due to the way the wood is cut, the fancy figure is kept in the largest portion of the butt stock. Most really good rifle makers such as Shiloh plan it this way so that the pistol grip, wrist, or what ever you wish to call the smallest part of the butt stock has a nice straight grain. It may still have figure in it but when you examine it the grain flows in line with the barrel of the rifle. This is the area of most stress during the recoil of a fired round. This is my understanding and is what I have always looked for when purchasing a rifle. Hope this helps, Randy

[Canoe112]

Randy,

Nice esoteric piece of knowledge.

Thanks,

Hal

[Ray Newman]

Dozer: hi grade woodon a rifle stock, w/ the proper lay out, will hold up.

However, one must exercise a great deal more care transporting, carrying, etc, the rifle. As you well know, one good scratch/dent/chip can & will ruin a fancy piece of fast. Likewise, a cheap soft case will offer no protection.

I have a very good friend who was distracted & has a nasty gouge in his rebuilt Remington Rolling Block where the butt caught on a cyclone fence gate @ the range. I thought he was going to have a coronary. Looks like what the old Yankee ratchet screwdriver will do when misapplied….

[dozer]

I do not have any concern about "handling marks". I have 30 yr old guns that still look great in spite of hard hunting use. My only concern is warping and splitting. I have a couple of Brownings with high grade wood, but they haven't had the 1000's of hard kicking rounds through them (yet).

I have wondered why so few guns at the range have high grade wood. Is the wood the problem or are they afraid to use a gun with nice wood?When spending $2000+, what's $200 more for truely nice wood? Most people only do this once (like me).

[Buckskinner]

Dozer

I would like to comment on your question. You have the correct answer on the wood problems, but Ray is correct in his statement as to how a stock blank is selected, not only at Shiloh, but all good stock makers.

Let me wander to a bad subject for a second, modern center fire rifle stocks, they should be selected with the figure in the butt area and as straight a grain flow as posable throuh the grip and into the forarm area. Twisty wood in the forarm area will cause a rifle to change point of aim as the Humidity changes over time, not a day of course, but longer periods of time.

Now back to the real world, I have found that one of the bigest problem with guns shooting out of the wood and or splitting the stock, is shooters cleaning their guns. We don't want it to rust so we give the gun oil hell!! Soon we have a piece of wood at the junction of the wood to metal fit that is softend with gun oil! Most of us stand our rifles muzzle up, where does the oil go?

Look at some old rifles and you will see what I mean, as the wood gets soft it gets loose, so we get out the ratchett screw driver and get into it with all we can give, don't want her loose. The next thing we know the stock has split, maybe from recoil, maybe from to much oil, most likley both

Just some of my casual observation

Thanks for your time folks

Buckskinner

Dozer I would like to know where the northwest is for you if you don't mind. Iam a wood worker also. thanks