GUNSTOCK WOOD TYPES

Bastogne Walnut
Black Walnut
Bubinga
Claro Black Walnut
English Walnut
English Walnut - Utah
Japanese Black Walnut
Macassar Ebony
Rosewood
Screwbean Mesquite

These very rare trees are strains crossed with European Black Walnut and the English Carpathian Strain Walnut trees. These trees grow a little faster than their Black and English Walnut counterparts, and the pores in the wood are so small they are hardly visible. This is a fantastic wood for tight checkering, as are any of the Southern Utah walnut strains, as they grow slowly due to our short growing season.

These trees were planted by the first Mormon settlers in the late 1800's. The strains of Black Walnut we find here in Utah are neither Eastern or Claro Walnut.

This is Bubinga from Africa and is used mainly in the United States as musical instrument wood, because it is very rare to obtain it in large enough pieces for gun wood. It is to this day the gunwood of choice for many South African safari guides. It is a little bit denser than walnut. This wood is so 3-dimensional it doesn't even look like it has a flat surface. From different angles and light conditions it can turn many colors and it shimmers with gold. The workability of this wood is unmatched. It saws well, sands well, takes a glass finish, and is very stable.

Claro Black Walnut is native to California and a very beautiful black walnut. Some is soft and some is hard. Most stocks are glass bedded for extra strength. Claro has been in use for gun wood for over a hundred years.

This is the thin-shelled English Walnut, also called Italian, European, Circassian, French, Royal, Russian, and Turkish. It’s all the same wood, but color and grade vary by location of where it grows. This is the king of the gun woods and most sought after and most expensive in the gun world today.

Grading of this wood is all about the amount of streaking and marbling in the wood, and the colors of this wood can vary from very blond to very highly colorful pieces. There are many misconceptions about what part of the tree produces the best gun wood. Many people have the conception that root wood is the best, when in fact this is totally wrong. Root wood has no strength or durability, and is very difficult to become stable. Root wood is very pretty and has the typical zig-zaggy lines seen in much of your Turkish blanks. We, at Old Tree, will not, and refuse to, cut root wood, as it is not stable type gun wood. The roots are more porous from being underground the whole life of the tree. Now if this root wood is also steamed or kiln dried, then you’ve taken a bad piece of wood and made it worse. Yes, it’s pretty, but that’s all it is. The best gun wood is at ground level where the trunk flares, going clear up to the first forks.

Stability is the single most important issue in gun wood, along with correct layout. Correct layout means the gun wood is straight grained through the wrist area and flows straight into your receivers. There are many in this industry that are selling blanks with bad layout. Bad layout can be determined by looking at your wood going into your receiver. It should never be going in at an angle or going down your forend area on a rifle at an angle. This wood has to be straight. The wood can have color patterns and mineral streaking in these areas, but the grain of the wood itself has to be straight. If it is not, you have a problem piece of wood. Correct layout is guaranteed at Old Tree Gun Blanks.

Steaming and boiling remove the oils in the wood, therefore making it cure and dry in as short as 2 weeks after being cut. This is not a practice that should be done on gun wood. These practices were designed for structural wood, not gun stocks. Kilning, steaming, and boiling will leave traces of these practices. The wood will not want to take a high polish, and many times the internal fiber structures of the wood will be damaged. At Old Tree Gun Blanks, all of our wood is air dried and seasoned the way it should be.

English Walnut

This Northern California English is of the world-famous Franquette strain. Highly marbled, with mineral lines, each piece will be like opening a present. As beautiful as a Franquette blank will look, you will not uncover the full, true beauty of this wood until after it is shaped. This is the magic with Franquette. These blanks are very, very rare on this market.

Utah English Walnut is a Carpathian Strain planted by the first Mormom settlers because it grows well in cold weather. This is the same strain found in the former Soviet Union. These trees are planted by seed and are not from grafted trees such as those in California.

These Black Walnut trees were planted by Chinese laborers in the mining camps in the late 1800’s. The nuts tend to be heart-shaped with a point. The wood is very colorful with lots of blues, purples and reds.

Available only in accent wood.

We offer two types, either Cocobolo or Christobel, named after the Spanish explorer. Please specify. These woods are from Mexico, Central America and South America. They are used only for accent pieces and are very dense, excellent for checkering.

This wood is offered for accent pieces only.

Screwbean Mesquite is some of the rarest gun wood in the world. Used on a lot of Weatherby's in the 1960's, it is only available from private lands and must be approved for cutting from the US government in most SouthWestern states. For every 10 blanks that are cut, after the drying process we will end up with 1.

Our Screwbean Mesquite is obtained from private landowners who are clearing trees for new housing developments. As a result, there is always only a quite limited supply of this beautiful wood.

Blues, reds, yellows, oranges, browns, and some chocolates can be found throughout this indescribably beautiful wood. Birds-eye siece poket markes, smaller than a pea, are common in this type of wood, just like flaws in emeralds and diamonds. It is simply a pain to cut and dry, is very hard on equipment, and only a small percentage of the blanks cure properly, but when cured, the wood is very hard and extremely stable, excellent for big caliber rifles. The beauty is hard to beat, and the extremely tight grain allows for excellent checkering.

We also supply forend accent pieces in this wood.