Wood questions

[northmn]

Walnut seemed to be preferred in about every early military gunstock I have heard of, used in the US, except possibly in Revolutionary times.  May have been more common back then.  I was not kidding about tobacco drying sheds either as walnut was used in some of them and as structural wood in other building applications.  Expediency during war time may change things but straight grained walnut was even used in WW2 guns like the M1.  The British used it in their Lee Enfields, many of which were made in the US and Canada.  I have a cheap Savage 340 with a walnut stock, the use of other woods is only fairly recent.  As I collected old bolt action military rifles I found it used by wealthier countries.  The Russians used some other wood.  I gather walnut resists warping more than some hardwoods.  S few years ago they stated that curly maple was not as structurally sound as straight grained maple and they had to save it from being used as pallet boards.  Economy of our forefathers, since it was not good for anything else use it for decoration  
As to overseasoning, if a Kiln is used too aggressively on too high a heat, cell structure can be broken down.  Maybe that is what is meant.


DP

[The other DWS]

Artificer,   wood that is "over seasoned", my term, is wood that had dried too much.  there is some level of residual moisture that wood needs to retain--maybe at the cellular level, once it dries beyond that point it may be very hard but can become brittle and splinters easily.   In my mostly checkered past I worked in museums for a number of years and I saw way too much over-dried age hardened wood in both historic structures and artifacts.  maaybe it is an age function as well or in spite of actual drying

Re: military use of walnut.   consider wood sources and supply in proximity to the arsenals where the arms were made in terms of shipping and handling  also the relative labor cost of machining and handwork in the earlier days.  from my own handwork I consider straight grain walnut much easier/quicker to work than maple.  for cranking out stocks in a military production manner even saving 10 or 15 min per stocks would really add up.
another thought,  most military long arms were designed so they could be used with a bayonet as an effective weapon up to WW 2 and beyond.  I'm thinking that good straight walnut would make a better stock wood for that use than maple

Re: European "Maple".  I once had a early pre-ww 1 era mauser that had been crudely sporterized by a great uncle probably with a hacksaw and pocket knife.   the stock was literally black with aged grime and old armory oil.  I decided to clean it up more out of curiosity than anything else for the cousin who had inherited it.   After much cleaning and degreasing it turned out to have an almost blond 100% tight fiddleback from stern to abbreviated stem.   I thought it was a maple of some sort but showed it to a wood expert at a local college and he assured me it was a very light colored eastern european walnut of the turkish/circassian type---but I'm now wondering if he was wrong and it was a curly sycamore.  wish I could have kept it, its since been lost out of the family

makes me wonder if some of that european "maple" actually is--or not

[Artificer]

Northmn and The Other DWS,

Thanks for the explanation on "overseasoning."  As I have always understood it, gunstock wood (at least walnut) is supposed to retain between 6 and no more than 9 or 10 percent moisture content.  I can see how drying it out too much would harm it.  

On the use of walnut in U.S. military arms.  Straight grained walnut was always the choice of U.S. arsenals from 1795 to beyond WWII and into the M14 in the late 50's- until the supply of walnut started to dry up and the furniture makers started bidding more for walnut than government arsenals could afford.  During  WWII only, they accepted figured walnut because they could not get enough straight grain walnut for 4 million Garands and all the stocks for the other small arms.  After the war, figured walnut was rarely ever again seen as figure in wood often denotes less strength.  

I am no expert on wood, but casual research seems to show walnut and hard maple grow at similar rates.  So I'm not sure that had anything to do with it.

As to wood around the Arsenals at Springfield and Harper's Ferry, hard rock sugar maple grew in greater abundance around Springfield.  If you look at the hills surrounding Harper's Ferry today, a whole lot of those trees are maple, though I admit I am not sure if they are sugar or other types of maple.  Never really thought to take a good look at what kind of maple trees they are.  Of course, they could have cut down all the walnut trees around the Arsenal years ago and maple was what they planted or what naturally "took over" the area.  I don't know.  

One reason they may not have used more maple was the sugar industry.  White or Cane sugar was very expensive in the 18th century.  Maple sugar was much more common and a whole lot less expensive.  If they cut down all the sugar trees,  they might have started another Revolution. Grin.

"By 1750 there were 120 (white) sugar refineries operating in Britain. Their combined output was only 30,000 tons per annum. At this stage sugar was still a luxury and vast profits were made to the extent that sugar was called "white gold". Governments recognised the vast profits to be made from sugar and taxed it highly. In Britain for instance, sugar tax in 1781 totalled £326,000, a figure that had grown by 1815 to £3,000,000. This situation was to stay until 1874 when the British government, under Prime Minister Gladstone, abolished the tax and brought sugar prices within the means of the ordinary citizen."

http://www.sucrose.com/lhist.html

Now I could be WAY off base, but I always thought walnut was tougher than maple and could take military abuse better.  My definition of "tougher" includes not being so likely to split and shatter - especially as DWS mentioned about bayonet fighting.  Have to admit when I visited Springfield Armory NHS in 1984, they were in the process of cleaning the "Organ Pipes of Muskets" and I was really surprised how much sap wood was in approximately half the stocks of those M1863 muskets they had cleaned at that time.  I chalked that up to the emergency of having to make so many M1863 muskets for the War Between the States and they only had so much seasoned walnut available.  

As many of the folks here attest, hard maple carves better than black walnut and the figure is often better or maybe easier to find than figured walnut.  That's why I always thought curly maple was more common in 18th and 19th century civilian arms.  

Muzzleloading guns usually don't beat the stock in recoil as much as modern rifles.  While you do see some curly or birdseye maple on modern gun stocks, it is no where nearly as common as walnut.  When NM bolt gun shooters were still using wood stocks, curly maple or even standard maple stocks were very rare.  Most all of them used walnut and since they had to have a very strong and stable stock, if maple was better than walnut, I'm sure they would have used it.  

Maybe we can get Gary to comment here (and set me straight as need be) as he has a degree in Forestry, besides his vast experience with long rifles.

Gus Fisher

[The other DWS]

one other thought re: the wood stock strength issue for military use.   on a civilian rifle it seems to me you'd have a thicker stronger iron or steel barrel and less likelihood of the arm being used as an impact/thrusting weapon so the use of figured wood would be less of a liability.
on a military arm of the ML era where bayonet use was commonly anticipated (I'm assuming up through the military  musket era including the US CW) you'd have had a much thinner wall metal tube for less strength in the barrel itself and a stouter stronger stock would be needed to handle the thrusting and leverage forces.

When you see the post-battle equipment returns with the high rate of "unfit for service" reporting one wonders how much was due to fouled and damaged barrels or how much of it was due to stock breakage.

[northmn]

One thing on early weapons using walnut.  I restored a few early guns, especially double hammer shotguns.  They are almost always split or cracked through weaker areas like the wrist and lock plate inlets or the tangs.  I put it off to shrinkage and expansion forces over time as the guns get stored in closets, porches or wherever. I just have not run into that much maple in older guns.  I like walnut for some builds because I do not stain a nice piece of walnut and I can go back and make a fix and just reapply stock finish witout matching stain if need be. Also walnut to me is just plain pretty.  Cutting firewood I have seen curl in about every tree imaginable, including oak.  Curl, I have been told is due to stress on the tree from wind sway.  I have cut some dead maple and seen curl that really hurts to burn, but it could in no way be used for anything much more than knife handles.  I can only split out so much of that stuff.  I have seen curly birch which I would like to salvage as some birch in my area can get pretty good sized.  Few would know the difference as birch works somewhere between sugar maple And red ample.  Aspen has some real curl but it is too soft although I get tempted to try it.  We do not have walnut, hickory or a few other more southern hardwoods in my area and the one maple that would make a couple of gunstocks, I just do not have the heart to cut.    A lot of red maple or very soft maple.  There was a time when trees were large enough to produce a lot of gunstocks per tree.  I have often wondered if some of the lack of drop in military stock designs was not for economy to get more stocks per tree.  I just bought a nice maple blank which is plain sawed they used to be quarter sawed.  Another indication that smaller trees may be getting used.

DP

[Stophel]

Many people consider European walnut to be the ultimate stock wood.  Hard, strong, easy to work, carves magnificently.  American walnut, though it can be nice, is just not the same.

European walnut is often rather plain and light in color, but also often curly.

[Artificer]

When you see the post-battle equipment returns with the high rate of "unfit for service" reporting one wonders how much was due to fouled and damaged barrels or how much of it was due to stock breakage.

Excellent points, especially this last one.  We also have to consider in the War Between the States that since both sides had so large of a population in their respective armies that were not professional soldiers, "clubbed muskets" was often used as it had been done in the Revolutionary War by Americans.

When you turn a musket (either flint or percussion) around and whack the enemy with the buttstock,  that is going to break a lot of stocks through the wrist no matter what kind of wood the stocks are made from.

Gus

OOps, forgot to mention something.  Intricate carving capability is not nearly so important on military stocks, so that may also contribute to the overwhelming use of walnut by our military through the years.

[Artificer]

Many people consider European walnut to be the ultimate stock wood.  Hard, strong, easy to work, carves magnificently.  American walnut, though it can be nice, is just not the same.

European walnut is often rather plain and light in color, but also often curly.

Which could well be another great reason curly maple was chosen for sporting arms as we didn't have European Walnut and curly maple was closer to it than our Black walnut. 

Gus

[Artificer]

One thing on early weapons using walnut.  I restored a few early guns, especially double hammer shotguns.  They are almost always split or cracked through weaker areas like the wrist and lock plate inlets or the tangs.  I put it off to shrinkage and expansion forces over time as the guns get stored in closets, porches or wherever. I just have not run into that much maple in older guns. 
DP

I'm sorry I don't quite understand.  Do you mean you haven't run into as much damage with maple stocks as walnut or that you haven't run into as many maple stocks as walnut?

Gus

[northmn]

All the older guns I worked on had walnut stocks.  I do not have access in my area to the earlier guns like folks in the East do so I cannot say how maple stands up to the test of time.

DP

[Artificer]

All the older guns I worked on had walnut stocks.  I do not have access in my area to the earlier guns like folks in the East do so I cannot say how maple stands up to the test of time.

DP

Thanks for the clarification. 

Gus

[The other DWS]

Could it be that the finer fibres and more complex, for lack of better terms--braided and curled--wood fibres in maple make it more resistant to splitting due to drying and shrinkage than the coarser fibred walnut?

[northmn]

Why walnut Traditional, and its relatively hard, strong and light and attractive.  A gunstock made out of white oak would have the fibers you talk about but would weigh more and possibly be a challenge for machining.  Hickory seems to be tough but was saved for ramrods.  Elm may not have been as common for mass production.  They claim that the reason Dutch Elm hit was that Elms were planted in too close proximity, that in their natural state they do not grow in groves.  Size may be an issue as Walnut trees can grow fairly large.  Birch have a tendency to die at a certain size.  We have seen rifles made out of alternative woods but walnut has been the favorite.  Cherry wood is pretty but we would be deprived of cherries if we cut them, etc.  I have considered elm for a gunstock but would have to saw it out as it does not split.  When I made a stock out of birch I was able to kerf and split out the blank with wedges.  I could do the same with maple if I could find the right tree.  (think maybe I have found one)   Making a stock out of a tree section is a lot of work but kind of rewarding, but you need to cut as close to the ground as possible to get the best figure and most utility.

DP

[Stophel]

Walnut was preferred for military guns primarily because of the relative ease of working, tradition, common wood at the time (I blame the military for using up all the best walnut), simple to finish with no stain (darker wood hides dirt and keeps the guns all looking uniform).  The US military also used beech, and many Civil War era muskets are stocked in beech, but the preference was always for walnut, which persisted well into the 20th century until people started thinking that perhaps it was not the best way to go since good walnut supplies were quickly drying up and getting more expensive, and birch or beech would work fine for just an old army gun.  Birch stocks were used on M1 Garands (though I am told only for replacement stocks...I may still have one here from years ago...), and M14's before they started using wood from the Nylon tree.

Remember, 200 years ago, it was much easier to get a really good quality piece of black walnut than it is today!  Today's "average" walnut is OK, but probably not nearly as nice as average in 1800.

[Acer Saccharum]

Some Sugar maples grow in corkscrew fashion, the trunk twisting 'round like a Twizzler. Others of same species, same field, grow straight.

Tom

[Artificer]

Remember, 200 years ago, it was much easier to get a really good quality piece of black walnut than it is today!  Today's "average" walnut is OK, but probably not nearly as nice as average in 1800.

Excellent point.

Birch was only used as replacement stocks and handguards and possibly only after the M14 came out in 1957 because the M14 also started with the specificaton for walnut stocks (and the first 2,000 with wood handguards).  Fiberglass stocks were brought out for versatility, less expense, more strength and especially because you can clean chemical and bioldogical agents off them in the field, unlike wood.  One of the main problems with birch stocks was the wood would compress down and be loose from far less rounds fired than walnut.  There went even combat accuracy out the door. 

Though I have no documented evidence to support this, I would assume that is why it never became a popular wood for gunstocks in the 18th and 19th century.  It also doesn't carve well and doesn't retain the shape of carving well as it compresses so easily. 

[dannybb55]

 The snap lock rifles of Scandinavia are Birch stocked, so are all of those local built Russian Nagants. www.musketandrifle.nu/. Magnus Wiberg's web site has nothing but birch stocked pieces. They seem to hold up well enough. Those snap lock rifles were made from the mid 1600s to the early 20th century with little change in architecture.

[northmn]

I built a gun out of birch and as I stated earlier, it was like working with something in between red maple and sugar maple.  I even checkered it, with the failing in checkering being my inexperience as it was my first attempt.  Birch and maple are very similar woods in working, but birch can be tricky to stain, especially if you get it too smooth.  Also there is very little figure in birch.  I cut mine out of the very base of the tree and got some burl in it.  There are several varieties of birch just like maple such that some may give softer wood than others.  Also I wonder if there are that many birch available for gunstocks.  Birch is a kind of delicate tree and often dies before it gets to gunstock size.  I spent last summer cutting a pile of them as they were dying and can rot very quickly. A top dead birch may look like good lumber but is not as sound as a healthy one.  They also cannot take much traffic at their base or they die.  A birch is unique with its bark in that it will rot with the bark on within a couple of years and be worthless for anything.  It was also the sacred tree of the local Anishinabee as they used its bark from everything from canoes, home siding to keep off rain, to berry baskets.  Its wood made everything from bows to firewood. I made a bow out of birch and it was very passable.  Birchbark canoes are much lighter weight than our modern ones and one has to be careful not to make them too light.  Very interesting tree and apologize for the windy response, but I use tons of the stuff a year and used to cut some for tourists to decorate their fireplace with. 


DP

[TPH]

Walnut was the wood for US military firearms from the musket contracts of 1792 and 1794 until well into WW2 when, as Chris said, birch was finally allowed for replacement stocks. However, the early contract muskets did specify maple as a secondary wood IF walnut was not available and some may have been stocked in maple, one or two have been reported on contract muskets. I do know of one Pennsylvania state contract Charleville pattern musket. Otherwise, walnut is seen exclusively, even during the Civil War - nothing else was accepted at the US armories or the contractors since the forests of Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania had more than enough walnut and plenty of sawyers to harvest it.  Eli Whitney offered to make stocks from another wood (I can't remember what it was, I will try to find out) but it was stricken from the contract before agreed to by the US. As stated before, walnut was a common wood in the 18th and 19th centuries and was even used to frame buildings. I have had a stock blank since the '70s that came from a sleeper in a late 18th Century home  that was torn down here in Augusta County, Va. It was not quite wide enough to make a complete stock so a piece was spliced onto the toe in a similar fashion to that used on Arisaka military rifles. It is hard and stable and very straight grained. When it came to stocks for military firearms of all periods from beginning to end, only straight grained, air dried wood was accepted. Those with curly figure (not uncommon) were considered fit for firewood and were not acceptable to the inspectors. German Mausers occasionally show up with curly grain but only on contract arms (mostly South American) or on wartime guns. Figured wood was not to be used, it was considered to be brash and unsuitable.

[Artificer]

I'm trying my best to keep modern guns out of this discussion, but I hope I will be forgiven because this post is really about walnut and birch wood.

I have no idea how many hundreds of G.I. walnut and birch stocks I've cut into, worked on, etc.  Most of the birch stocks I've worked with were M14, but maybe 6 or 7 dozen Garand stocks were birch.  This both from as an active duty NM armorer for 23 years and another 12 plus years doing it after I retired.  I wanted to point that out as the quality of both the walnut and the birch I've mostly worked with was that accepted by the government.  Some of today's commercial walnut and birch stocks for both the Garand and the M14 are not "government quality."  I've heard from good sources that most of the Birch the government accepted for both rifles was actually from Canada as the quality of their wood was much better.

We only used birch stocks for NM rifles because we had to and not by choice.  During my first week as an apprentice in the NM Rifle Section at the RTE Shop at Quantico, I machined over 75 stocks in three days to cut the wood for glass bedding.  That was my first real experience working with birch stocks and was the beginning of my disdain for it.  There was a few more birch stocks than walnut in that stack and they were all standard stocks taken from Depot rebuilt rifles.  Compared to the walnut, the birch cut like butter and would shear out or even roll away from a carbide cutter - even at different speeds in the mill.  It also tore out far easier and that's with both machines and sharp chisels. We found with birch stocks we had to cut a lot more wood out to fill with fiberglass bedding, so they would stand up to the same amount of rounds fired as walnut stocks before needing re-bedding. 

From cutting into WWII stocks that had also been used in the Korean War and much abused there vs birch stocks that had been made at least 15 years later and could not have been nearly so abused, it is easy to tell birch sucks up oil and grease far deeper than walnut and makes the stock loose.  This is something to watch for even with a ML gun.  Birch also compresses much easier and that means the parts will loosen up quicker and accuracy suffers sooner.  I doubt this would be seen as strongly with ML guns as you just can't shoot so many rounds so quickly and the barrels are more securely fixed than an M1 or M14 action is fixed in a stock.  With bolt action rifles like the Nagant, when the stock gets loose up and down, you can just tighten the screws to make up for it.  That also helps front to rear looseness a bit. 

In the John Garand matches where a whole new generation is shooting standard walnut and birch stocks with no glass bedding , they also see that birch compresses and shoots loose faster. 

I could go on and on about birch for modern guns, but this is not the forum to do it.  Because kids could read this forum, I won't mention what we called birch stocks in the NM game.  The only way I like birch is when it is laminated and then most of the weak points of birch don't matter.  However, I would never have a birch stock on a ML gun by choice.   

Gus





 

[Rolf]

All I can say is that the birch you guys have, has got to be very different from the birch we got in Scandinavian. Flame birch was used by several Scandinavian gunsmiths around 1800, for high grade finely carved com petion rifles. Heres a couple of pictures of rifle in flame birch made by Knut Gierstad. Sorry about the poor quality of the photos. On the second phot, only the top rifle is birch..



There are no complaints about birch stocks in any of the Scandinavian gun books I've read.The latin name for our flame birch is Betula pendula. Regular birch is Betula pubescens. Both are favorites among makers of highly carve baroc "bonde" style furniture. I use flame birch for most of the rocking chairs I make.

Two of the practice stocks I made for the pistols I'm building were birch. The brich was alot harder and easier to work with, than the piece of black walnut I'm using now. This walnut chips and splinters alot more. But, then again, I might have gotten a bad piece. It's the first time I've used black walnut.

Birch varies alot in quality. The best trees are slow growth wood from nothern hill slopes. Fast growing trees near riverbanks are fire wood. Top quality birch can be hard to find.

Best regards
Rolfkt

[northmn]

I built this out of a local white birch tree.  Unfortunately the only flame was in the very base and it became very straight at the forestock.  Still I like the effect.  Its setting on top of its sister blank that I may have to find a use for.  Might make a good pistol?

DP

[Artificer]

The best walnut trees for gun stocks seem to come from hilly areas where it is hard for them to grow.  That's why for so many years both Bishops and Reinhardt Fagen were in the little town of Warsaw, Missouri.  Walnut grown around swamps can produce soft wood, so a lot has to do with where the walnut came from (climate, soil, elevation, rate of growth,et all) - just as in other woods.

I suspect the trees in Scandanavia were a hardier tree than many we find in the U.S. and that should or would have made them better for gun stocks.  Tried to do some casual research, but will admit I got more confusion than answers. 

Beech is used for gunstocks in NorthEastern Europe, but use of beech here for gunstocks is very limited.

Perahaps the birch wood from Europe is slightly better than our birch, just as Euopean Walnut is generally regarded as better than American Black Walnut.

[northmn]

A few factors that go into figure of any wood include location and climate.  For instance in Northern MN we do not have as many hardwood trees that produce good "saw" logs as they frost split and do not grow as large as even in Southern MN.  There is no walnut, hickory or cherry trees.   The birch tree I cut with the figure was a very tall one standing on top of a hill where it could catch the wind (one of the reasons I cut it).  Wind will give trees like maple their curl as well as in walnut.  A deep woods tree like we have mostly will grow very straight and tall with fewer branches and have little wind effect which will make them straight grained.  So called crotch wood is very figured, where it is cut close to large branches.  Burl often comes from the very base where the tree gets the most form of stress from wind movement.  Grain is the result of growth rate.  Colder climates may provide slower growth and have smaller growth rings or tighter grain.  Swamps provide more moisture and can give larger growth rings.  Generally, larger growth rings can mean softer wood also.  A tree that grows in the open "spreads out" more with lower large branches.  Its ironic that logging is the major industry in my area but that the trees are smaller.  We feed pulp mills for hardboard.  There used to be a very large industry that cut gigantic Norway pines but they have been cut off and have not grown back.  Hardwoods are found in clay and pine in sandy soils.  Some of the things that go into wood quality. 


DP

[westerner]

Ive heard the wind theory before. What Ive observed in trees that live in wind is the large trees will have natural fissures in them to allow movement to deal with wind.  In Walnut the wood fibers grow at the same rate. So when wind? heavy snow and gravity push the limbs down the wood fibers on the inside of the curve are forced to bunch up or curl. At the outside curve the fibers are pulled straight.  In trunks of large Walnut trees I feel the shear weight of the entire tree pushing down causes the wood to curl. Marblecake comes from the extreme butt where the mineral streaking "dirt" is sucked up into the wood. The way the wood is milled will show marbling. Just off board sawed shows the best.

Thanks for showing the fancy Birch Rolfkt.  Neat rifles and real perty wood. 


                                   Joe.