Oak stock??

[spec4 e4]

Has any of you guys or gals had an stock made out of red or white oak. Been think about send an slab of red oak to Richard Mirco-fit.

 

 

spec.4

[Guest Guest]

Grain is way to large would look bad, most likely would end up spliting.

[Mausermeister]

I've thought about it. I have made some beautiful pistol grips from oak. If cured and dried properly, it should not be too prone to splitting. I think the main reason that oak isn't used in gunstocks is because it it so hard after curing. When I make the oak grips, it dulls my tools in way less than half the time as walnut or cherry.

[BobVZ]

Has any of you guys or gals had an stock made out of red or white oak.  Been think about send an slab of red oak to Richard Mirco-fit. 

spec.4

8722[/snapback]

 

 

I've never done it, but my stockwood book says its just too heavy, too open grain and prone to splintering. Think about it - if were good for gunstocks, you can bet it would have been used extensively by the military.

 

Now something that intrigues me is hickory. Specifically the heartwood. I was walking thru the local home center recently and spied some cabinets made from hickory. Most of it was sapwood, but occasionally you would get these nice streaks of reddish-brown heartwood that closely resemble walnut. The grain was about halfway between walnut and oak. It had some nice figure to it. I'd love to get a blank with some stumpwood in it to send to Richards.

[MorgansBoss]

Oak is one tough wood but the major problem I see is weight. It is HEAVY! There is a lot of Osage orange - or as its locally know, hedge apple - at my buddy's farm. I'm hoping to try a slab of it for a blank one day. I can see some difficulty in working it but it is a beautiful honey color and TOUGH!

[spec4 e4]

I was thinking on the way home today and was thinking of doing an laminted of Birch, walnut, oak, and cherry, all 1/4 thick. What do you think???

 

I have to agree the oak is to open grain.

 

spec.4

[BobVZ]

I was thinking on the way home today and was thinking of doing an laminted of Birch, walnut, oak, and cherry, all 1/4 thick.  What do you think???

 

I have to agree the oak is to open grain.

 

spec.4

8739[/snapback]

 

I think I would still shy away from the oak. When you go to shaping the stock it will leave long open pores. Also 4 different types of woods won't look right - stick to two contrasting woods like birch and walnut or cherry and birch. Consider maple and beech too. You can also do 4 layer laminates of a single wood and alternate the growth rings for a super stable stock with some interesting grain patterns. I've seen a triple layer stock thats sort of a maple sandwich with black walnut for the "bread". This puts hard maple right behind the recoil lug and around the action screw holes. Looks really cool in a thumbhole sporter.

 

Bob

[Nelsdou]

for MorgansBoss,

 

I've done a fair amount of working with "bois d' arc" or Osage orange in making indian style bows. It is very dense (48 lbs/cubic ft) and is hard on tools. Where I grew up the "hedge trees" trunks had a "twist" or "spin" their grain structure, so when you split a trunk (which was very tough) you'd end up with a gradual helical-shaped piece of wood. But because of that same grain twisting, a slab cut with a bandsaw would have a lot of beautiful tiger eye. However, when exposed to sunlight and air, the wood darkens and loses a lot of its bright color.

 

It would make a beautiful gunstock, but difficult to work. I'd make sure too that the grain not be inline with the barrel in the area of the recoil lug to avoid splitting. Some people are very sensitive to the sawdust.

 

If you do get a chance to get some logs or billets, seal the ends with wax to prevent checking as the wood cures.

[Horsefly]

Oak is used for furniture for the very reason I think it wouldn't be so good for a stock,and that's the weight.Hickory should make a good stock though,and has a nice color.Oak was used for many years on horse rigs,like single trees and wagon tongues.My Grandpa used oak on all his harness and wagon parts and had no problem with splitting after drying.He split green oak down to size while green because it split so evenly.Red or White oak would be very white wood.My Dad is a cabinet maker,so I've seen lots of oak used.I wouldn't spend the money having a stock turned on a piece of wood I thought might work,I'd want a sure thing.Jerry

[Mausermeister]

Nelsdou,

 

I too have thought of using bodoc (bois d' arc, Osage orange, horseapple) for a gunstock. The problem is finding a tree big enough to saw a blank from. The white sap wood can be up to 4" thick on a large tree. It would take an extremely large and rare (around here anyway) specimen to quartersaw a proper stock blank from.

 

Oak or bodoc either may be too heavy for a sporter, but that very property would make them excellent choices for a bench gun.

[swamp_thing]

I have asked this question of others before and gotten two negative answers consistantly. The first answer being that oak although extemely strong and heavy has a tendency to split and splinter when subjected to a blow such as recoil. That seems reasonable when I consider that a simple hammer blow will split an oak board rather effeciently. The second response has been that oak wood contains a high amount of tanic acid, which has a corrosive property to metal. Not being a wood man so to speak, I cannot verify the tanic acid part of these answers, but I can state that I have split many a oak board for kindling with a light to moderate hit from a hammer. For me, it would not be worth the effort involved in making and finishing a stock to risk using oak for the wood. Others opinions may vary, but this is where my thoughts have ended up on oak stocks. swamp_thing

[mimic]

I kind of have to agree with several opinions, summed up like this. As plentiful as Oak is both in Germany and here in the US, I would have to think that (especially in times of both war with its huge demands, and in times of sky high prices), companies like mauser, styer, Remmy and Winny would have all at least introduced oak as either a whole stock, or even as part of a stock if it was feasible to do so. Heck, even during WWII, with all the shortages that both the germans and russians had to deal with, along with the millions of rifles they made, they never used oak. Even as wood ran short, they switched to laminated stocks so they could make them out of the scraps of maple and beech they had laying around.

 

Just my .02

 

mimic

[Nelsdou]

Yep Mausermeister,

 

A lot of hedges of Osage Orange planted back in the dustbowl days have been bulldozed out; just too much labor to saw them except for salvaging 6" and smaller sections for fence posts. I have seen some really big mature Osage Orange trees in Kansas and Oklahoma but they are usually in inaccessible places and would be an awesome job to cut down. Once I got lucky when a rancher cleared an old pasture and bulldozed all the trees into piles to eventually burn. It was one tough job to cut and pull some Osage logs out of those piles!

[Horsefly]

We have plenty of giant Horse Apple trees here in Texas,and they are hated as much as mesquite and cedar.Anyone that's never cut one while green is in for an ordeal.The white,milky sap bleeds out of the wood and plays hell on a chainsaw by holding all the sawdust on the bar and gumming up around the chain sprocket,and has a crappy smell too.The outer layer,an inch or 2,is bright yellow,then turns to a walnut color towards the center.It's beautiful wood and will outlast any other wood I know of when used for fence post.I made a forend for an old Bishop stock a while back,and it has just a touch of the yellow wood,but turned a burnt orange after finishing,and the dark wood almost was a match with the walnut in the stock.It turned out very nice,and if it hadn't been for the yellow wood,it would have looked like a patch instead of a contrasting forend.There's stumps under old buildings built in the 1800's where I grew up that are still harder than a woodpeckers lips.Oh,and bo'dark has thorns that are real hard and play hell on a tractor tire too.Maybe I can get a chunk and send it to one of you guys to try to make a stock out of and we can put this question to bed.I'll see what I can do.Jerry

[roscoedoh]

Jerry,

 

You guys have a bunch of Bos Darc up there? I'd love a piece. Oaks, sweetgums, and pines don't hold well for stockwork.

 

Osage Orange is a neat wood. One of my best friend's father-in-law make bows out of it. Very pretty when finished.

 

Jason

 

[Horsefly]

Jason,let me see what I can find.Do you want enough for a stock or a piece for a forend or knife handles?The last I got I had a hard time getting around cracks because it was cut up in small pieces while green.I'm off next week,so maybe I can pull off my house remodeling long enough to round up some horse-apple wood.Jerry

[Guest mick1213]

 

 

here should be a photo of an oak stock. On a Mauser Sportmodell. Doesn.t appear to be noticeably heavy. Grain is very open.

[Nelsdou]

The wood grain on this Yugo k98 is also very open, but I believe it is elm. The barrel channel was very rough hewn and the wood fibers appear to be tough and stringy.

 

[swamp_thing]

For a long time it seemed that the consensus was that the yugo stocks were teak. I have no idea as to what they actually are but they certainly are very open grained. I don't think they are oak either. It would be nice if we could find out exactly what wood they did use. Any persons out there with first hand knowledge as to the answer to this? swamp_thing