American chestnut as a stock wood

[Rick Love]

I have been reading about the furniture of early Americana and how this wood was used.
My question is : Was this wood used to stock any guns? I have never seen or heard of this but wanted to ask a much more knowledgeable audience. By a strange coincidence, I live about 20 miles from 2 old american Chestnut trees that survived the plague and the state has been trying to grow some clones from it.

[rich pierce]

Though once plentiful like oak and good for structural work and board furniture, it lacks figure ( I’m not saying it’s unattractive) and can be splintery, from what I’ve heard. I’m sure that somewhere, some folks used it, but in the areas where it was plentiful and being used for construction of buildings, makers chose traditional stock woods. Chestnut on the one scale I found is softer than poplar, far softer than soft maple or cherry.

[mountainman70]

Hi Rick and welcome to the forum.
I built a chestnut rifle last year. It was made from a new growth American Chestnut grown near
Wytheville Virginia
I'll post pics later as my phone ain't happy
Best regards, Dave

[rayh]

I recently made a few shadow boxes from Chestnut  boards that came from a building my G-father built back in1920's. I used a lock mitre joint and it really chipped easily. I finished  the boxes with Teak Oil. It took a lot of coats to finish.  The worm holes look neat though.

[Joe R]

In Lambert and Whisker’s “Gunsmiths of West Virginia” there is included an Albert Honaker who was a gunsmith and a farmer. The book states,” Correspondence from Albert’s son Abraham indicated that Albert had made stock of chestnut wood. The family had to work constantly just to make ends meet. Albert’s sons were frequently assigned the task of locating wood to use for gunstocks.”

The book notes that Albert was a gunsmith in Raleigh County, WV at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.

So apparently there is some history of chestnut being used.

My personal interest in this subject was that when I moved to my property 30 some years ago we still had a couple of standing American chestnut tree trunks. One of them at chest high it took me 4 spans  to reach around. So it was a large tree in its day. I had visions of getting the tree down and getting the wood to make a gun. Well nature took care of it and brought it down on its own. Unfortunately there was nowhere the thickness of wood to get a good blank for a pistol let alone a rifle. I got enough pieces to make some turkey calls and other small items.

Well as I am hitting the preview button I see that new posting has been made and that mountainman70 is going to show us pics of a build. Looking forward to seen that.

[mountainman70]

I believe I posted it back in spring or summer of 22  You might do a search for my posts and see if you can find it
I'll still try tomorrow
Good night all

[Lucky R A]

        A couple of guys who are learning and build in my shop came in the other night with a nearly 8' hunk of American chestnut that one had found somewhere here in the mountains of north centeral PA.   Instead of building we spent the evening reducing the "log" to one usable gunstock blank.  The center core of the wood was quite hard.  The piece had been dead for some time and was dozy an inch or all around.  We will see how it dries out.
        Fred Miller had a beautiful curly chestnut blank, a friend bought it off of him.  That wood looks like the finest curly Ash, but is Chestnut.  It will be a treat to see that finished into a gunstock sometime in the future.   the one thing I can say is that it is as heavy as hard maple.

Ron

[GrizG]

I've got a couple hybrid American/Chinese chestnut trees on my property. Due to an auto collision and storm damage, over time I've scavenged some of the wood for small wood working projects (e.g., keep sake boxes). I found it to be relatively soft and that it splits and chips relatively easily. Personally, based on those experiences, I wouldn't consider it to be good stock wood or for fine woodworking that has a lot of detail. For rough carpentry and simple trim it is fine.

[Rick Love]

Well, it looks like it can indeed be used but is not ideal for a variety of reasons. Thanks for all the replies.
Mountainman, your rifle is gorgeous.

[Eric Krewson]

There was a rifle in the Museum of Appalachia near Norris Tn that appears to have a chestnut stock, it is a very plain southern rifle. I grew up about a mile over the ridge from the museum, in my youth (50s) the mountain sides were thick with the standing grey trunks and limbs of long dead chestnut trees, many of them of huge proportions, they were so massive you could pick out individual trees from a half mile away.

To me they looked like tombstones signaling the passage of a once great era in American history.

[LynnC]

It seems that the American Chestnut was a strong and rot resistant wood suitable for anything from furniture to fence posts. I have Chinese chestnuts and the limbs don't even have to fall to the ground to rot.  Very soft and weak wood.  Two very different “branches” of the same tree. But the nuts are tasty. 😉

[Daryl]

Interesting, in that it (this piece) looks a lot like Ash.

[mountainman70]

Well, it looks like it can indeed be used but is not ideal for a variety of reasons. Thanks for all the replies.
Mountainman, your rifle is gorgeous.

Thanks Rick. Many years ago I was involved with restoring a 1915 vintage pipe organ,made in Iowa,and the rack boards were wormy chestnut,so it was old stuff. It had a tendency to split and crack,and all sorts of odd stuff. It did respond well to glue and clamps,and the job turned out well.
I never dreamed I would be making a longrifle from Chestnut 40 years later.
I got this semi precarve from moodyholler when he was selling his plunder. Butt was already carved,the tapered and flared barrel inlet, and thats all.
My mentor Bob W and I both like to build with all types of hardwood,and this is the ONLY chestnut we have seen.
This has been a fun thread.Best regards, Dave

[mountainman70]

Interesting, in that it (this piece) looks a lot like Ash.

Hi Daryl, I had never seen curly ash until it showed up here,and I must say it looks like a great wood to use.
This piece has some curl mostly on the forestock from lock panels forward,and was interesting to work.
it definitely is chestnut,as it has the odor of burning chestnut when working with power tools.Thats one smell I dont mind in my nostrils.
Mighty windy on my mountain tonight,how you and Taylor up there?
Best regards, Dave F

[Daryl]

Yeah - we're good, Dave. Been cold, been quite warm, up to +5C- heading into the negatives tomorrow & for a while.
Wind hasn't been too bad at all. Stay warm, Bro.

[skratch]

Just a quick note on chestnut wood, not really relevant to the thread but some years ago
a relative bought 40 acres of land in the east, don't remember where. There was an old house
that was sheathed in rough sawn worm eaten chestnut boards. He salvaged the lumber and sold it
for almost enough to pay for the land.
I'd think a sound chestnut stock blank now would be very expensive if even exists.

[JBJ]

It has a reputation for being fairly course grained and easily split. Chestnut fence rails used to be the "standard" for split rail fences in East Tennessee where I was raised.

J.B.