What is this circassias walnut shit that ruger is putting on their big bore 77's...Man you look at it the wrong way and its gouged,or dinged. They might be able to make a tougher stock out of spruce,pine or hemlock. Christ I baby,and I mean baby guns,and mine looks like its got acne. Whats the bush goin to do to it,if you can hardly even touch it...What is this stuff anyway?????

quote:

Originally posted by charger:
What is this circassias walnut shit that ruger is putting on their big bore 77's...Man you look at it the wrong way and its gouged,or dinged. They might be able to make a tougher stock out of spruce,pine or hemlock. Christ I baby,and I mean baby guns,and mine looks like its got acne. Whats the bush goin to do to it,if you can hardly even touch it...What is this stuff anyway?????

Never had that problem with any of my Ruger's. Lawdog

Good Circasian walnut is pretty hard to beat, but I have seen the term used pretty loosely over the years...but hey its still wood and never has been as hard as steel...you whack them hard enough and the scratch, dent or gouge depending on the whack...so will a composit stock, or a laminate btw...

The Turks ruin it by boiling or hot steaming it for 24 hours. The natural oils are boiled out and it dries in about a month. What do you expect when you ruin it like that?

thumper,
The best wood in the world today is Turkish Walnut...what a croc sir.

I hate it when the paint flakes off of my synthetic stocks...

My Cordoba had "Carinthian Leather" another word for plastic. Inspect what you expect and buy some thing older when craftmanship was just that, not some hype saying thought up by some p.r. educated idiot. Charlie

Just got back from Zimbabwe and buffalo hunting. Both me and my 416 Ruger went through all kinds of thorns, rocks, etc. The Ruger won, hardly any scratches. Circassian walnut IS very tough indeed and my Ruger certainly bears this out. jorge

PS: Chrysler Cordobas did have Corinthian leather and it was real leather so if yuurs was plactic, you got hosed.

The wood on my .416 is just what you'd expect, close grained and very hard, can't hardly put a mark on it.

Ray, you are poorly informed. You can contact the American Gunmaker's Guild and discover their problems with Turkish Walnut. Some is actually from Russia and Pakistan but sold as Turkish. Actually it is sold as Circassian, which it is NOT.

The guild members are having significant problems with the Turk's wood. Someone pays $3000 for a blank and gives it to the custom gun maker who starts turning it and discovers cracks and punky areas. The gunmaker advises the customer that his stock has major problems and may not even be suitable for the rifle or shotgun in question. The customer fires back asking what the gunmaker did to ruin his $3000 blank! The custom gunmakers are really angry over the situation. Furthermore, with the natural oils having been removed from the wood, it will NEVER stabilise. The wood thus treated by the Turks and dried in an average of 5 weeks is a travesty.

quote:

Originally posted by Thumpper470:

Someone pays $3000 for a blank...

Bragging rights for someone who can afford that.
I can't see how a piece of tree is worth that much money, period.
Wow.
Like I said eleswhere, hunting with something that expensive ( whether it's worth it or not ) is like spitting on the Mona Lisa.

My Ruger 416 RSM in stock has been pretty durable so far, couple of dings, not much grain or pattern, but strength is there, which is the number one priority.

quote:

Originally posted by Thumpper470:
Ray, you are poorly informed. You can contact the American Gunmaker's Guild and discover their problems with Turkish Walnut. Some is actually from Russia and Pakistan but sold as Turkish. Actually it is sold as Circassian, which it is NOT.

Furthermore, with the natural oils having been removed from the wood, it will NEVER stabilise. The wood thus treated by the Turks and dried in an average of 5 weeks is a travesty.

Only way to avoid the Turks steam bath is to buy green wood and dry it yourself.

I been told that if you find a blank of real Circassian it will cost thick wad of $$$

Cheers
/JOHAN

Good Thumper, then you use whatever you wish and I will continue to use good Russian wood and yes the turks do steal it from Russia and then sell it as Turkish, so what..but I know the moisture content and good wood, and all my stocks are Turkish wood...Circasian is wood from the Circasian area I am told...Its all hardshell walnut and named from its geographical source...Sure are a lot of Gild members that use use it...Go to Bill Dowtins web sight, Chiron sell it, and several others, Jack Belk, and a host of other recommend it, I won't name them all...but about all of them sell it, so I guess there uninformed..You better contact them and let them know...You the first I know to condem turkish walnut.. I suppose you prefer Claro..

Ray, first of all, Turkish/Russian/Circassian/French/English/Pakistani walnut is all Juglans Regia which is THIN-shelled walnut as opposed to American black or Claro Walnut which is known as thick or hard shelled walnut. The advantage of Juglans Regia is that is has better workability than black walnut which is USUALLY denser. Next, most of Dowtin's wood is Pakistani. I know his supplier. After the first 3 months or so, Dowtin dries the wood properly himself.

The problem is that most Turkish suppliers do not want to wait a year for drying and another for stabilizing. They steam or boil it and remove the natural oils which slow the drying process. With no internal oils, there can be no stabilization. Fabbri realizes this and "Woolmerizes" their Turkish wood. This is a process of pressurizing the wood with some substance that would take the place of natural oils. Unfortunately, it is only partially successful in stabilizing the wood. Fabbri has had problems as you can see in the Technicanna section of SSM in the May/June issue. In fact, it was the second failure of Turkish wood on this $50,000 gun. Now the Turks will tell you that their process is required in order to ship internationally to kill bugs and disease. However, in reality, you need only raise the internal temperature momentarily to 140 degree F.

You can contact other wood sellers like Cecil Freddie or other stock turners like John Vest (John is also a guild member) or Russ Wilson. Ask, and you shall learn.

Well thanks for the reply, The Turkish wood I have has served me well, its hard as woodpecker lips and checkers well, has no tendency to warp, but I have had most of it for more than a few years..I stocked most of my guns some years back but am stocking 3 as we speak, one finished today in fact the other two are coming along well, bet they do just fine..I have used a couple of Chiron blanks, and they sure did work well and the guys that bought them sure did like them....I have bought wood from Cecil but don't remember if it was Turkish or not...I have been building stocks for many years as a hobby, and never had a bad piece of Turkish, so lets just let it go at that..I don't know who you are so I have no way of judging your knowledge...and don't want to get in a pissin contest over a log...

Ray, no disrespect intended. I am sure you have been to the guild show or Vegas and seen punky Turkish wood and wood that they have laid out improperly. There are also 4 container loads of Claro over there in Turkey they have worked on to look like English. I see those on ocassion. You and I can easily spot good and bad wood (except for the ocassional piece that just hides some bad areas inside. But many folks have no idea what to look for. They think high prices means good wood. It doesn't. One must be more careful picking Turkish than other wood. They is a high amount of real crap out there. It often has numerous punky areas from both improper drying and from wild trees with bug/disease problems. Folks should use the fingernail test all over the wood. With improper drying, the bad areas are usually inside with punky areas and small cracks to big voids. The guys who buy wet wood and dry it themselves have a big advantage.

Wood characteristics vary, but on the average Bastogne is the densest followed by black then English. Californian and Australian English are the densest on the average according to David Trevallion. English has the best resilience (on the average). The biggest advantage of English is workability (machinability). By English, I mean Jurglans Regia from any locale.

Oh, I think you will find walnut trees quite rare in present day Circassia. Most of what they call "Circassian" is Turkish in origin.

70% of what I own would probably be english the other 30 black. Through 35 years of bashing and smashing,falling down hills,GOD knows what,they all together dont have the marks I've put in this circassious crap with my fingers at the range and cleaning in a few months

Well I contacted D'Arcy Echols and his comment was that he thinks you got into some bad wood..He also stated that he doubted that Ruger every paid over $40. for a blank..He also has a supply on Turkish wood on hand and thinks highly of it..so I suppose it just depends on who is buying it and if they know wood..I also talked to Bill Dowtin and much of his wood is out of Russia these days and he is also into furniture and housing wood now...

I agree some wood is bad, but you cannot confine that to Turkish..Plenty of wood out of California and Oregon is cork IMO and to state that Bastone, Black or California English is better than Turkish is just not so...

I have shuffled through some of the Turk wood at the Guild and it was not good stuff, most of it was not layed out properly and many turkish blanks that I have worked with are actually laid out upside down, but thats not a problem..They just cut it to get the most out of the tree..I have bought pallets of wood from them and most of it was excellent, except they always stick some bad ones on the bottom, just being Turks...

As D'Arcy said what you are saying is like I bought a bad Ford, so all Fords are bad..He said he had a bunch of Turkish wood that is as hard and dense as he is!! so do I.

quote:

Originally posted by Atkinson:
Good Circasian walnut is pretty hard to beat, but I have seen the term used pretty loosely over the years...but hey its still wood and never has been as hard as steel...you whack them hard enough and the scratch, dent or gouge depending on the whack...so will a composit stock, or a laminate btw...

I'm sure a lot of wood is fraudulently mislabelled, but to me, Circassian has to be actually from the Caucasses Mountain region of the former Soviet Union.....

I am certainly no expert on the subject, but my understanding was that the walnut is steamed briefly to kill any bugs that might be present. I also read somewhere that the steam darkened the sapwood somewhat, probably to disguise it. If indeed some are steaming or boiling the wood for 24 hours, I do not see how that would speed the drying process. I would think quite the opposite. My guess is they are doing it to sell blanks with a lot of sapwood.

Glen, they do steam/boil the wood for 24 hours. What this does is to remove the natural oils in the wood. These oils help slow down the water in the wood from exiting quickly. With them gone, the moisture exits quickly causing microcracks and larger cracks, too. It is a terrible thing to do to fine wood. Without the oils, moisture will enter and leave the wood to a much greater extent meaning a loss of stability and will impact accuracy and point of impact in rifles. These are not good things.

As far as added darkness in wood caused by boiling, the dark lines tend to expand and blur a bit. The sapwood is not much affected. Remember that sapwood in black walnut is all the white areas. However, there is a great deal of white wood in English walnut and Bastogne walnut that is NOT sapwood. The dark lines go into the wood when it gets quite large. An 18" diameter tree may have NO dark lines at all and will look like maple. Gunmakers used to treat stocks with very hot linseed oil to expand the dark lines. We don't really call it boiling because the ignition temperature of linseed oil is close to the boiling point. It gets dangerous.

I Googled "steaming walnut" and got some interesting info on steaming walnut to darken sapwood. Apparently it is routinely done to black walnut for veneers. Doesn't mention any application for gunstocks, but Goby Walnut mentions on their site that they don't steam their wood. Makes you wonder.

Steam is used to dry a lot of pulp/paper products for the most part, if you have ever used toilet paper........well it was steamed to dry it, if not it sure would have been hard to use, go to a a paper mill and watch how paper of all kinds is dried and paper is pulp wood for the most part, steam is inert. Alot of the turkish walnut has been steamed. Long as its not been steamed to much it may be fine, its when its steamed to much it goes to hell. I would have to guess its just a modern way of speeding the process. Just think how long it would take to dry toilet paper if it wasnt for steam.........don't pay any attenion to me, its 4th of July and I'm drunk, but I do have a back ground in process control

Unless you plan on wiping your ass with your gustock, then only dry your gunstock blanks with AIR. In previous lives I have dreid wood for a living, made paper for a living, and made some guns on the side. If you want long term stability in a gunstock, let it air dry and cure for several years. NO other way to get the stability. ANd yes, a lot o fth eTurkish wood is steamed and therefore "less good."

Well I'm with D'Arcy Echols and many others that consider Turkish some of the best wood available today...

With all respect, I think this is the most ridiculasly misleading thread that I have seen on any forum and for those who think Bastogne, claro and black walnut is the better wood then feel free to use it...I think it is cork grown on Kalifornia ditch banks...

But I will let you chatter his one out amongst yorselves....

Ray, you are poorly informed.

Here are suggestions for the novices out to pick a piece of wood:

First of all, ANY variety of wood can be soft and punky. The easiest way to determine which are too soft is the ol thumbnail test. Try to sink the thumbnail into the woodand then try to make a long scratch with it. A really hard piece of wood will have something like a burnish mark made on it but NO indentation. If you have an indentation, pass on the wood. Another thing of vital importance is proper layout. Accept no feather or burl in the wrist or action area. Fiddle is OK. Quarter or slab sawn makes no difference. The grain is vital in the wrist and action area and should not turn out or flow other than with the flow of the stock.

If you want a cheekpiece, you need at least 2 1/4" thickness. The Turks cut wood quite thin and may not be this thick. Turkish wood often has inch size areas which are soft. Check the entire blank for soft areas.

It is best if you have a knowledgeable friend along to critic the wood.

Apparently mine came off a shit house door from a tuna scooner...Ruger should be ashamed. And I'm in the process of explaining that to them right now. Its so soft the back of your fingernail will leave a depression..

quote:

Originally posted by Thumpper470:
Wood characteristics vary, but on the average Bastogne is the densest followed by black then English.

Thumpper,
Did you mean this in another order? Bastogne, English (regia), Black (then claro) on average, right? At least in my limited experience, this turns out to be the case, as well as my readings.

as for chiron's wood, I've handled a couple pieces, and ALL of them have been far better than the pirctures look.

jeffe

Thumpper what causes the soft areas?

Soft areas can be caused by many things. Sandy soil is one. Areas in the valley South of Sacramento are usually ignored by most blank cutters. Soft wood or areas of soft wood are common here. Disease and insects can cause soft areas. Now interestingly enough, speed of growth is not a total answer. On the average, Bastogne walnut is much denser and much faster growing than any other walnut. I have see two inch wide growth rings in Bastogne in wood that is almost too dense for gunstocks. On the other hand, wood in Oregon with its shorter, cooler season can be EXTREMELY dense whether it is black walnut or English. The properties of the various walnuts overlap even from the same areas. Properties change significantly even from the same tree. You must grade the individual blank, not the type or where it is from. The true advantage of English is that it has better workability than the other walnuts.

Another factor is whether or not the wood has been grafted. In my experience, wild English is usually denser than grafted English. English is usually grafted in commercial groves as black/Claro/Bastogne is less susceptible to disease, bugs, and rot.

Another factor is "temper". Wood first dries which takes 1-3 years for a blank in a dry area depending upon the type of walnut (English is the fastest to dry). Then it takes another year under best conditions to stabilize. I believe this is caused by micro structure expanding and contracting as atmospheric moisture changes. With these cycles, the wood microstructure intertwines and, as a result, moves less in time with humidity changes. This means better stability. But "temper" is something else again. Temper is a gradual hardening of the wood over decades of time. I knew a very old European trained violin maker in my youth. He made two a year and even at that time sold for $60,000. He would NEVER use any wood less than 75 years old. The older wood was tempered to a great hardness resulting in better tone. He told me that grandfathers planted orchards not for themselves but their grandchildren and great grandchildren. Sometimes we wood connoisures find very old blanks which have been properly stored under humidity that varies. I cut an English piece and a myrtlewood piece of this age. Both were EXTREMELY difficult to sand with even a power sander. HARD!

I might add that when I talk about "English" walnut, I mean Jurglans regia from any area. It likely originated in Persia as a thick shelled nut. The nuts chosen and replanted by those who et of it were probably the thinnest they could find resulting over some millenia in a "thin" shelled variety. The same technique is being used on black walnut and has reduced the thickness. We get the name "walnut" from the old English "wealh" nut or "strange" nut as the old English described the nut brought by the Romans to England. We likely get the term "English" walnut from the English who brought it into Virginia. It has 3 times the calories and 50% more protein than beefsteak. It has been discovered as a food in a 9000 year old settlement in Switzerland.

Now you know more than you wanted to know.

I may be poorly informed, but I am informed by Darwin Hensley, Bill Dowtin, D'Arcy Echols, Dressels, and half a dozen others who I called at your suggestion, there comment was who is that guy?, and I'll let it fo at that...

In my opinnion you talk the talk, but you don't walk the walk...You can dazzle with bullshit however...

My favorite stock material comes from McMillan. I don't care about cosmetics or 'Blessed Tradition'. I'm done with wood. Fiberglass is better........

AD

Ray, you are poorly informed.

Why, oh why must we persist with the argumentation! Good wood is good wood...that is, hard, tight grained, properly laid out, dry...and any figure, watermarking, etc., only adds good points (and money). Missing any of what makes wood "good" for gunstocks, it makes little differece the origin. "Good" black walnut is like "good" English, Bastogne, Turkish, Russian, Morrocan, or any other "place" walnut...and good wood is where you find it and what you are willing to pay for it...and I love good wood! Moreover, I am beginning to think Allen has the correct view here...McMillian has some of the very best! (Apologies to Ray and others...and I still covet a nice piece of real walnut)...All of the fine gunmakers mentioned know good wood when they work with it and I would imagine they reject bad wood (and rarely make THAT decision based on country of origin). That is what Ray ment...they pick, use and sell only what THEY consider to be the best, and please note that THE BEST has no country of origin stamp...why else would Chic (and others) spend the time to go through an entire truck load of wood from Presliks to find what THEY are looking for...It is not a decision made on the information of others. I will not choose a piece unless I LIKE IT (and unfortunately can afford it...not likely!). Good is good, bad is bad...let each choose based on HIS standards, wants and needs and most certainly on the intended use...We need all the information we can get to make good choices here, but aguements do not help...Please! Arthur Olds

Thanks for the answer Thumper. I enjoyed reading your post.

.

Alf is correct about Circassian being a region which has little wood left. The type of Jurglans regia is quite possibly that known in the US as "Mayotte" as compared to Francotte which has a close resemblance to French walnut with a yellowish tone. Mayotte has a carmel tone and both have quite dark lines. I may have misspelled Mayotte. Both are found in California in continually decreasing amounts. The really old French was very dark toned without the yellow. The "new" variety took over and has been what we have seen in the 20th Century. The early 19th Century was the darker variety.

As better production types are planted in the US, we really do not know what we are going to see as the wood usually has very little dark lines until it reaches 15-18" diameter. The really good gunstock wood goes on after it reaches about 36" diameter in English and we see very little of this left. Current tax laws benefit those who replant often. Therefore, the days of American English for gunstocks are numbered.