Stock question.

[Rt5403]

So still a newbie to building. I have a question on stock wood. Out of all the types and grades what is the most forgiving to carve and inlet?

[HighUintas]

I am a level one novice, but I'm going to make a guess and let the veterans correct me. I'm going to say it would be straight grained hard maple, slab sawn

[sz]

Well the question can't be answered as it's asked.  You see, different pieces of wood cut differently even if they are from the same sub-species.  In fact they can cut a lot different even in the same piece of wood from place to place.  That goes for Sugar Maple, Red Maple, Black Walnut, English Walnut, Bastogne Walnut, Cherry, Persimmon, Ash............and probably others too.  No single type of wood is always easy.

Hard and plain is the easiest to carve. Fancy curl or grain makes things more difficult.

 Too soft and it won't hold the carving very well unless the design is large and fairly "bold" but fine details need a dense and hard wood.

 Inletting is easier if the wood in medium hardness.  Super hard is OK but the cuts have to be fine and thin. 

Super soft is easy to move, but the edges of the inlets have a tendency to collapse some.

[B.Barker]

I have found that plain sugar maple and persimmon to be the best to work in American wood. Cherry is supposed to be very stable but in my opinion it's a bit soft. More so than red maple at least the pieces I've had. I really don't like American black walnut because it can be really soft and chippy some times. My body really doesn't get along with the dust of black walnut also. Out of all these woods I have found that plain sugar maple is the most consistent and easiest to get a good blank in. The others are more inconsistent to find really good blanks. I also prefer to pick out my own wood in person unless I know the person that is doing the picking on the other end. In the end most important is sharp tools. A lot of poor inlets and carving is due to dull tools. If your chisel tears when cutting end grain it's not sharp enough to do gun work.

[wapiti22]

I’m currently working on a cherry pistol stock. For the most part it carves rather easily, but it also chips rather easily.

[martin9]

I just finished a plain jane Jaeger in cherry. Beautiful wood but I decided to not carve it as it was crazy chippy. It is figured quite a bit though. It seems to be very grain oriented as to whether it's chippy or not. All wood is but this was ridiculous. It was the only piece of cherry I've worked so I feel sure it's not all like that.

+1 on my vote for plain sugar maple

[mikeyfirelock]

It’s true that some types of wood are more easily worked than others, but I think we should also consider that the tools used can be a factor.   I’m thinking along the lines of learning to sharpen not only chisels  and gouges , but also saws a s well,  and keeping files and rasps clean and stored properly.   ( and perhaps giving files a vinegar soak every once in a while. )

[Cory Joe Stewart]

I will be honest with you.  Sometimes I cannot tell until I start to inlet the barrel.  I have changed course on a couple of projects once I started to inlet the barrel and found the wood was too soft or to "chippy" for carving.  A buddy of mine is a wood carver (not gunstocks) and when he goes to select wood for projects he takes a gouge with him to test it.  I order my gunstock through the mail and generally have to wait and see what arrives.

Cory Joe