After reading about nice figure and seeing some of the stocks members have reworked, I decided to ask my dad to rework my CZ 550 American stock. When he removed the gunk they call finish, instead of some nice Turkish Walnut, the stock looks to be Birch or something similar. To say I am disappointed is an understatement. Has anyone else found wood other than Walnut on their CZ's, or am I just lucky?

Mine (Standar Model) comes with Haya wood (European white wood like pine)the worst I have ever seen, I think that the "De luxe" model and American Model comes with walnut stock.Mine was almost impossible to oil finish, I had to use a nitrocelulosic finish, other way stay ugly white!!!.

contact them and see if you got shafted, stock-wise. if you did, they'll probably make it right.

http://cz-usa.com/about_contacts.php

the "Americans" listed on their website all specify walnut.

The CZ American stocks are American walnut. If the stock didn't have any figure to begin with it is not going to magically appear when the finish is removed.

I realize not all stocks are going to be replete with figure. Some will have none. My question is about the wood itself. Dad has built several stocks over the years, and he assures me that this wood is not walnut of any description. That is where my concern lies. Is CZ shipping stocks that they claim to be walnut that are made of a different (inferior) wood?

all of the "Americans" I have seen had plain old American black walnut. Some of it not so strong. If you wound up with a beech stock, it owuld likely be stronger than pieces of chippy black anyway.

Can you post a pic? I saw one AMerican that was stripped of the finish and color. Had a huge amount of white sap wood on it. That could be what you have. We can't say without seeing it.

Have some pictures, just don't know how to get them on here. Can somebody send me some instructions on posting pictures for dummies?

create an account at, and upload your pics to:

http://photobucket.com/

it's free.

when you have uploaded to your photobucket album, you'll see "IMG Code" under the thumbnail of the pic ; copy the code following that, and paste it into your message on the board.

sample code from my album on photo bucket:

[ IMG ]http:/ /i149.photobucket. com/albums/s56/oidad/Progress1002a.jpg[ /IMG ]

if your photos are HUGE, reduce their size and quality so those of us using modems don't have to wait a half hour for the download

I know the outfit that sells the stocks to CZ, and the wood that he had ready to ship when I was at his place of business was plain jane turkish walnut with no figure or color appeared as off white or yellow looking, they are blanks cut to a shape that CZ wants and they pay $25.00 per stock

Looks like I got one of those.

With a little stain and finish There will be some gain there. Not a $1000 blank but a nice looking rifle.

Is that a purple heart grip cap? Is that factory?

Bill, it isn't factory. Dad has used the purple heart for years as his "signature" on grip caps and fore end tips.

It looks to me like sap wood walnut alright,although it is hard to say from photos.I would suggest getting some tung oil stain-medium walnut color.also sand with much finer sandpaper by hand,looks like sander swirls in the middle photo near the buttplate.I would go up to at least 400 grit or 600.let us know how it turns out.

Who is your Dad?

CZ used a finish that has a walnut color in it that gives the darker look to the wood. I have seen a lot of guys do the same thing to their CZ guns and the underlying wood is almost always a light colored wood but a pigmented finish makes it look a lot better in the end.

Yeah, I had a commercial FN Mauser supposed to be French Walnut, blond as anything and no grain to speak of, same with a .22 Unique, also probably French. Yer pays cheap yer gets cheap.

You checked CZ prices laately? They seem to have gone up like gasoline prices. Not what they were a few years back from what I understand. Wish I had known about them back when they were cheap.

quote:

You checked CZ prices laately? They seem to have gone up like gasoline prices. Not what they were a few years back from what I understand. Wish I had known about them back when they were cheap.

They don't have to raise their prices. The US$ keeps dropping. It is down about 12% to the Euro from last year. The US and Canadian $$ are trading equal. Anything coming from outside the country will continue to cost more.