Forging ahead with finishing my projects in progress, I got the 280 AI I have been wanting roughed into the stock. I always liked the 280 and had a lot of success with it for Western hunting. A friend of mine who grew up in a non-hunting family became an obsessive sheep hunter, scoring two grand slams in his life, even though he couldn't afford it. His choice was always the 280 AI, so I thought I would try one.

I wanted to see if anyone had any comments on the wood I am using. It is a piece of Paradox walnut I bought from a wood dealer in California. I purchased it on eBay for $140. According to him (and some further research I did), Paradox is a cross developed by Luther Burbank to provde a fast growing hardwood with beautiful grain. It was developed to aid the furniture industry. It is a cross between American black and English walnuts. I believe it is now one of the dominant rootstocks used by the California walnut growers. I have seen some wood dealers refer to this cross as Royal walnut, but a lot of information I have found would indicate its real name is Burbank Paradox Walnut or simply Paradox Walnut.

Anyway, I am pretty far along and comitted, but wondered if anyone had any experience with this wood?

In the pictures, I had swiped on a coat of Truoil on the off side of the buttstock. The cheekpiecs side and the rest are the natural color. The wood exhibits an amazing array of colors throughout the grain. I still need to do a lot of final contouring etc, but thought I would post these.

The action is an FN Commercial. I bought an old custom to get the action. From the stock buttplate, I suspect this was a JC Higgens. I swapped the bottom metal for some I had in the shop.

looks nice! who cut the stock for you?

Due to the pore structure throughout the stock, it looks like Claro/ Western Black to me.

Unless it is literally as hard and tough as Bastogne (not likely due to the color), my educated guess is that is is just a well laid out and nicely colored stock of Western black/Claro.

I cut it myself on a small duplicator.

I have worked with quite a few claro stocks, and it doesn't work at all like claro. It does have the pores and grain pattern, but it cuts like butter with no tearouts or splits, and completely controllable. It lacks totally the soft/hard texture which I really hate in claro. When you cut or sand across a fiddleback or mineral line, nothing changes much. It is not nearly as hard as Bastogne.

From what I have learned, it is the dominant rootstock species, with different groves growing their own to graft and plant. When a blank has a graft line, this would generally be the wood below the graft. It is rare to find a fully grown tree, since they aren't used for production.

If you want to see a fully grown tree, do a search on paradox walnut and you can see the tree at the Luther Burbank museum which was planted in 1914.

Nice lines. As for the wood, just call it walnut and don't worry a/b it.

Well, the wood itself was actually the reason for the post. Paradox is a walnut hybrid that is common and well documented, but not now commonly harvested as a lumber wood. See
www.uckac.edu/files/90862.pdf
for a paper that describes the background of the tree. Burbank himself described the development of this,and Royal walnut, in a 1914 book which can be found online. See
http://books.google.com/books?...dox%20walnut&f=false

The Royal walnut is a prolific nut producer. The Paradox is not. For this reason the Paradox is seldom planted as a standalone tree, unless it is used as a quick growing shade tree. The Paradox is a cross between the California black walnut and the English walnut. The Royal is a cross between the Eastern black walnut and the English walnut. This according to the booked reference listed. (Many wood dealers mistakenly refer to Royal walnut as Bastogne or a cross similar to Paradox, which it isn't.)

With all the talk of walnut varieties, I have never heard mention of the Paradox in stockmaking. Due to the nature of its use as primarily a rootstock, I suspect it is rarely available. The two blanks I obtained were cut by a wood cutter of many years experience, He reportedly cut a large shade tree at a residential site. I was trying to see if there was any one with experience with this wood who had any information as to its general traits. I know this blank has the look of highly figured Claro, but takes finish and works much differently than any figured claro I have used. It cuts and works much more like English, but it is impossible to make much of a judgement based on one blank. The fascinating part is that this tree supposedly grows 5 to 10 times faster than other walnuts.

Nice ebay catch, dammit I missed that one. I like the rifle as well.

Dressels carries Paradox walnut and list it specifically as paradox. I have a 2 piece blank of paradox that is some pretty amazing feather crotch. It has a lot of the characteristics of both claro and english but is definately a completely different animal than either.

I bought my blank from an Ebay seller in CA also - I would be willing to bet they are the same guy. After seeing the photos of your stock I am anxious to start working with mine.

Please post more photos as your stock progresses. I bet it is going to be amazing when you apply the oil!!!!

i believe i'd bury a piece of threaded rod in the grip. pretty piece of wood, will need some serious pore fillilng

I sold a number of blanks on AR of the same wood. They came from a Northern Ca. cutter. All very beautiful light and dark stripe walnut.

No one ever sends pics when they are done.

Very nice stock.

Rich

ButchBloc

I do plan on a reinforcing rod in the grip. I have quite a bit more thinning to do there and around the trigger, and I don't trust fancy grain too much, so I usually reinforce the grip. I also have just bedded the action lug and continued it under the barrel about 1-1/2" to give it some shear bonding. I need to finish the shaping around the grip and bolt release and taper the forend, since it looks like it flares back out and is too heavy right now. That should trim it down a lot before I start finishing.

In the pictures, the wood has just been drum sanded on a 150 grit. I haven't started any hand sanding yet. I hope the flame and fiddleback pop out when I get it smooth.

quote:

Nice ebay catch, dammit I missed that one. I like the rifle as well.

I have found that eBay can be a good source if you are careful what you are doing. If you find the right piece of wood, you can get a real deal. I don't think it is the place for really expensive blanks, since there is too much riding on them, but for the "kinda nice" blanks that I like to work with, it is often a good source. I bought this blank



for $42. When I saw it, there were not a lot of pictures, the exposures were a little light, and the grain didn't show very well. However, the grain did look reasonably well laid out, and had some dark lines which showed the wandering of the figure. There were end shots included, and it was obvious that the blank was almost perfectly slab sawed, so I took a chance on the turning increasing the streaking, and nobody else was much interested. It certainly turned out better than $42 when finished. You just have to be careful and control your bidding. Nice two piece blanks seem easy to come by there. Nice one piece ones are not as common, so you have to really work to find a bargain.

Art; Ray and Kathy Richter sell what they call Royal Walnut. Thats a nice one you got there, hope to see the finished project...Nice!

http://familygrade.blogspot.com/

Their page is above, click to see their walnut.

I've actually bought quite q bit of wood from them on eBay. They have always been good to deal with.