Ok all you wood experts out there I'm thinking about laminating a stock. Would laminated mahogany be suitable for a rifle stock? Also when laminating how critical is moisture content of the wood? When allowing the wood to dry would you leave it as a complete log or cut it into fairly large planks to dry then cut it to size to laminate? thanks in advance!!!!

I would think mahogany would be a little heavy and a little soft for a rifle stock?

It will be fine for a stock laminated or whole slab should be near 8% MC . Remember there are several

different species of most all Woods which carry a generic label when sold . Specify by the Latin genius

when ever possible . There for assuring yourself what you paid for is what you received .



As evident by this description http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahogany

My Dbl entry doors are constructed from Khaya and Teak ,which I made 25 Years ago. They face

Southeast and are Oil finished . They still look Marvelous as does the stain glass inserts .


IMO : lamination's are best either # 3 piece or Multi piece .

I see that by others statements Mahogany isn't suitable !. I'm curios as to why they make such unfounded

assumptions . Ships use Mahogany as hardwood floors are also made from mahogany . An example of strength as

follows . Black Walnut modulus of rupture 66,000 Kilo Pascals , Mahogany ( Swietenia Macrophylla ) 80,300

Modulus of Rupture in Kilo Pascals . Shear parallel too grain maximum shearing strength both are 9,000 Kilo

Pascals all above figures are averages . Khaya or African Mahogany is harder yet .

As a scientist I tend to deal in facts rather than myth .

I have been working with Mahogany all my life, but in the form of a Gibson Les Paul Guitar of one variation or another. Mahogany would be very heavy, way to soft and way to resonate. Take a good piece of Honduran Mahogany and knock on it with your knuckle, see how it rings? I can not imagine what would happen when a rifle went off with a piece of that wrapped around it.

Joe

The reason I said mahogany is too heavy and too soft for a gunstock is...I have a piece of mahogany being used as a gunstock.

I bought a No.1 Mk3 Lee-Enfield stock kit some years ago from one of the surplus dealers online. What arrived was an overside mahogany monstrocity that I had to shape, finish, etc. But it is a piece of unremarkable looking mahogany and it is fairly soft (dings very easily) and is quite heavy for a piece of wood its size. On this SMLE, it works for what I need it to do, but I would not want to use a wood of this type for any other rifle. Especially one where precise inletting is required because I don't trust this wood to hold the action in place under recoil, repeatedly, over a long span of time.

Mahogany makes nice front doors, cabinets, and gun cases, but its not on my list of woods to use for rifle stocks.

Pretty sure Remington put mahogany stocks on some 1100 remingtons

The reason I am thinking about trying mahogany is that I can cut the tree, saw it, glue it and make it into a stock. Sounds like a fun project, not intended to save any money or start a production line. I would like to have something usable when it is finished. I'm not completely sure I can find big enough trees to even cut for laminations, if can I'll give it a try.

Apparently the Japanese thought it would work. They stocked a LOT of rifles with it.

Are you talking Mahogany or Mountain Mahogany?

Did not know Utah was known for Mahogany forests?

I guess it would be mountain magogany, there is actually quite a bit of it around here. Some pretty good size trees.