I purchased a really nice Simson 12 ga. The wood in real nice condition is unknown to me. It resembles laminated wood but it is not, its real wood..It has a blond matrix with thin black lines running straight lengthwise and its very porus..I have seen this wood on other turn of the century English shotguns..It apparently is used on what was then a low grade double. By todays standards these old English shotguns with steel barrels are high grade indeed by comparison..wood feels yuckey but it points like a Boss, flat top checkering..I will restock it at some point I suspect.

This one is a real keeper set up like I like a double rifle or shotgun with double triggers and extractors, full and Imp cyl.

Got it identified, European Birch, butt ugly but sure is a nice shotgun, they don't build like this one anymore, and it was the low grade. Time to drag out the horse shoe rasp and restock It. I have a real nice stick of Russian Walnut from Bill Dowtin..

Isn't it time to buy a decent rasp?

My horse would be tramitized, and that would require a new pocket knife I suspect...

Ray,

Maybe too many people are taking advantage of the $8.50 sharpening service that Duane recommends and SDH is having a hard time selling his $350 rasps.

Just received a set (3) of those rasps for $350 from SDH . And they look like they're worth it. Like custom gunstocks, sometimes you pay extra for the finer quality things in life.

Robert: I'm sure they're worth every penny. Rasps don't stay aggressively sharp forever. Even when they get a little dull, Boggs can bring them back to better than new.

I got a $140.00 rasp from Auriou recently .Sharp, but not what I'm used to now. I invested another few dollars with a Boggs sharpening...Viola!

Never heard any Simson with Birch stock. Those cheaper german shotguns used to have stocks made from very pale coloured european wallnut. Birch was very common stock wood here in Finland and yours description Atkinson doesn´t fit to birch. It looks like this:

Thanks Duane, your opinion always counts. I'll look into the service once im productive enough to dull these.