Traditional woods used on SMR's?

[Ezra]

In my que of rifles awaiting being built are a Gillespie and a traditional Tennessee mountain rifle (Bean,Lawing, like that).  I have a nice ash stock for my Gillespie but am pondering wood types for my Tennessee.  All I can really think of is walnut or curly maple.  Were they traditionally made of cherry or is that not a wood found in Tennessee?  What else?  It has to be something I can get nowadays,  obviously chesnut is out, probably others too.  Thoughts?

Ez

[Ken G]

Ez,

Walnut and Maple are going to be your most common in my opinion.  I don't know about Cherry.  I know it grows in TN but I don't think you could say it was common on a E. TN gunstock. 

Ken

[rsells]

I agree with Ken G.   Walnut and maple are the woods normally used to build the orginal TN rifles I have looked at over the years.  They may be rifles built using cherry and other woods, but I have not looked at any.  Most customers I work with want maple or walnut wood.  I have built a couple rifles in the past out of curly ash.  Ash makes a good looking rifle, but I have never seen an original made out of that wood.  Stocks made of ash are much harder to work with than maple or walnut and are scarce in my neck of the woods. 
                                                                                                Roger Sells

[Cory Joe Stewart]

Cherry does grow in the region but Cherry in the south seems very prone to cracking.

Cory Joe Stewart