The Accurate Reloading Forums THE ACCURATE RELOADING.COM FORUMS Guns, Politics, Gunsmithing & Reloading Gunsmithing "Upper Grade" Walnut..:)Go | New | Find | Notify | Tools | Reply | |
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No prices and he also sells Persian rugs. You know the old saying. "If you have to ask you can't afford it." He does have some beautiful sticks though.  Terry -------------------------------------------- Well, other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play? | |||
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I don't even waste my time looking if they don't post prices. ______________________________ "Truth is the daughter of time." Francis Bacon | |||
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I emailed him several years back and asked for prices of a couple of blanks he had. I received a relatively quick and polite reply. The blanks were very nice and I don't recall the exact prices but they were way out of my range, $2500 and up, way up, plus shipping. That was before the dollar really cratered vs the Euro so I'm guessing his prices haven't gone down. xxxxxxxxxx When considering US based operations of guides/outfitters, check and see if they are NRA members. If not, why support someone who doesn't support us? Consider spending your money elsewhere. NEVER, EVER book a hunt with BLAIR WORLDWIDE HUNTING or JEFF BLAIR. I have come to understand that in hunting, the goal is not the goal but the process. | |||
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Steve is an agent for the Turkish in ENgland. I dealt with him years ago. His prices were a bit above average then. He is real high now. Recently i do not see anyone competing with the guys over at Luxus. They some how seem to have brought the price down on Turkish walnut. I was OK paying Steve and he was friendly while i was buying. I had a defective blank and i could not get a return email. I decided buying high and paying shipping from overseas was not worth it. pretty wood that Turkish is. I love my Avatar Too Fellas. | |||
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I did the same e-mail a while back, cost as much as what i was going to put in the finished rifle...But it was a damn pretty peice of wood. Turkish is nice, but i've noticed a couple price jumps here lately. _____________________ Steve Traxson | |||
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If I wanted some good Russian walnut, turkish is the same as the turks have been stealing the Russian stuff for years until recently. Now the Russians shoot them... Bill Dowtins Old World Walnut is great and priced right...www.oldworldwalnut.com..It comes straight out of Russia and is real Circassian. Ray Atkinson Atkinson Hunting Adventures 10 Ward Lane, Filer, Idaho, 83328 208-731-4120 rayatkinsonhunting@gmail.com | |||
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DMB, I am very sorry to hijack your thread. However, i cannot stand to hear Bill get a plug when i know what he is really like. Ray, I should know better than this but believe me when i say the only reason is in the best interest of guys that are like me...work hard for our money and love nice guns. That said, I would not ever, i repeat EVER pay Bill Dowtin for a piece of wood no matter how good the price is. Two very good friends of mine had to learn the hard way. Case 1. Friend of mine bought 5 sticks of wood. Package was delivered with 4 sticks of wood. Bill states over the phone that when he shipped it there were 5 sticks in it. The package was stuffed with 4, you could actually see through the top and bottom, read---no more room. There never was a 5th stick. Case 2. Another friend of mine several years ago bought 3 sticks from Bill and asked him to deliver it to a friends house as he was going away on business and would return a week after the scheduled delivery. Bill agreed. My friend returned home a week after the package was there and opened the box. All three were in there but one was very light weight and not what my friend had asked for as all three of these were intended for double rifles. Bill said they were all heavy and dense...Not! Bill would not take the stick back in trade for another one. He simply refused to even talk to him any more and would not answer his phone calls. Without a doubt there are a number of guys here on AR that have had similar things happen with Bill Dowtin. If one speaks up the general rule of thumb is there are 25 more. I love my Avatar Too Fellas. | |||
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Thanks for the heads up i was interested in one there, what seems to be the biggest problem, i'm looking at just one?  _____________________ Steve Traxson | |||
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That's a most excellent looking blank. What's the price? NRA Life Member, Band of Bubbas Charter Member, PGCA, DRSS. Shoot & hunt with vintage classics. | |||
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Between 500. and 750., dont know if its still there. I've had bad luck at other places also, but when the guys at the top of their field say 20 years of bad reputation...I get concerned. They should know more about them then i do, or maybe it's just a chip on the shoulder...Dont know! http://www.oldworldwalnut.com/main.html _____________________ Steve Traxson | |||
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I don't know a thing about "Upper Grade Walnut". I do know that the three Black Walnut blanks I bought several years ago from Robert Watts at Watts Walnut have made very beautiful and heavy, durable stocks for my 404 Jeffery rifles. If you are building a rifle to show off to your buddies over some fine Single Malt Whisky and good Cigars, then I guess the upper stuff is needed. I wonder if those "Upper Grade" stocks ever get dragged throught the thorns or bounced around in the hunting buggy rifle carrier? Ah Hell, it's your money, you ought to do what you want with it. I did! Just my opine! Rusty We Band of Brothers! DRSS, NRA & SCI Life Member "I am rejoiced at my fate. Do not be uneasy about me, for I am with my friends." ----- David Crockett in his last letter (to his children), January 9th, 1836 "I will never forsake Texas and her cause. I am her son." ----- Jose Antonio Navarro, from Mexican Prison in 1841 "for I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." Thomas Jefferson Declaration of Arbroath April 6, 1320-“. . .It is not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom - for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.” | |||
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That seems in the ballpark to me for Turkish/Circassian of that quality. $500 would be a very good price IMO assuming it is not one-sided or with any other drawbacks. Haven't had any experience with Dowtin but he has some nice stuff on his website. NRA Life Member, Band of Bubbas Charter Member, PGCA, DRSS. Shoot & hunt with vintage classics. | |||
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I've dealt with Dowtin. Never again. ______________________________ "Truth is the daughter of time." Francis Bacon | |||
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I still have the burl claro walnut air drying that is very similar in form to this one, but mine is only claro. However, I was originally told these would not make good stocks:  Mine    It would not be fun to pay top dollar for a burl stock that would not hold up to thousands of rounds of 12 gauge from a trap gun as he has posted here:  | |||
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Guys, Thought i might jump in on this one...only about wood though, not the other. First off Rusty...I have plenty of high grade stocks on my guns, even before we started Luxus i was using the very finest wood on my guns. I am of the opinion that a gun with a high grade stick of wood (regardless of your judgment of what makes a piece "high grade") makes a gun FAR more fascinating and attractive...ESPECIALLY later on in life when the gun has most certainly been used...the more use the better. When it has been carried countless miles and the steel is turning silver and the patina on the wood is patina on a "high grade"; I will debate its superior beauty over an equal gun on a standard grade of wood over any campfire and any scotch, and not just a single malt. --A gun like that is an interesting gun, and such a gun I am proud to own and carry, and most importantly to hunt with. I say the following for you to ponder. I inherited a Winchester 94 from my grandfather who received the gun from his father. It fed their families, and was carried as a tool and received honest albeit hard use. It happens to have a slightly fancy stick of wood on it. I would cherish it no matter the woods grade, though it makes the gun more interesting in my opinion and it tells me something about my forefathers. And most importantly it gives the gun soul. | |||
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Here is a well used high grade. It is my gun and it has been dragged up mountains, used to shoved a skiff off sandbars and it has been soaked with water, oil, wax, wet dog and blood. I cannot buy that finish in a bottle and it has never been insulted as a "safe queenâ€.   | |||
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Lastly, 333_OKH and others on Claro and Black walnut. First off it is fine for a gunstock under almost all conditions. But it is not even close to Juglans regia and this is true because of physical differences. I will share something with you about walnut that you probably will not have ever heard. Here it is: Black Walnut, juglans negro Claro walnut, Juglans hindsi Bastogne, juglans iforgetsi and all other hybrids of walnut have something in common with all other hardwoods, the length of their fiber. That is 3 to 5 inches. Juglans Regia is an anomaly in the world of hard woods because it has fibers twice as long as hard woods and sometimes even longer. This makes it more stable, stronger and better under recoil. It also insures better checkering because you do not run over the ends of as many fibers which will make it fuzzy. So the next time someone tells you black walnut is as good as Turkish, English, French, Persian or any other pseudonym of this wood try this experiment... Glue some spaghetti pasta together into a bundle about 1 1/2 inches thick. Set aside. Now break some OTHER spaghetti strips into 4 inch long pieces and then glue together into the same size. When they are dry soak them in water and sit them in the sun. Watch which one warps. Then let them dry and then try to break them and see which breaks the easiest. I tell you this so you will try it and understand. And the next time an expert tries to impress you with his knowledge of wood you can send him back to school. Lastly, Burl. Short fiber (all other hardwoods) burl should never be used on a gunstock; Unless you have a thru-bolt design. Turkish burl is different because of those long fibers. That said i would still not want burl in your wrist unless you have a thru-bolt design then by all means, go to town with the burl. I know many shooters who shoot 10's of thousands of rounds annually with shotguns that are solid burl in the wrist. They never have problems. Make of it what you will. | |||
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I was of the impression that American Black Walnut (juglans negra) was a native tree and not a hydrid. English Walnut (juglans regia) was actually a Persian originated tree and most of the gunstock woods we commonly see today are Hybrids of the English or Persian. When I was in gunsmith school in the 50's the basic fine grade wood was called 'French Walnut' which I always assumed to come from Franch. It was definitely differentiated from others as being the preferred wood of the time. We didn't have access to Circassian or Turkish or any other of the exotic forms of walnut. I would just assume these to be regional versions of the original Persian varity. I do know that walnut grown in a wet area is not the same as walnut grown in a hilly area. This is apparent in the coarse grain structure of the different areas. I once had 10 sample pieces I cut from trees grown in different physical locations from bottom of hill to top of hill to marshy areas etc. These samples I cut and polished to show the diffenece in grain structure. I did this for a Botany class in college. All were American Walnut grown near my home in Mississippi. They were markedly different and it was very obvoius even to the casual observer. I would find it hard to believe there is a gunsmith or especially stockmaker today who does not understand the requirements for a gunstock as it pertains to grain flow. I learned this from gunwriters long before I went to Gunsmith school. SCI Life Member NRA Patron Life Member DRSS | |||
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zimbabwe, Yes Juglans negro is a native species, i did not mean to imply other wise with regards to that species. However it can and does cross pollinate with other walnuts and the offspring in turn can do the same thing. When isolated they can mutate into their own respective subspecies though over a great period of time. A prime example of this is the true Circassian tree. Yes it is indeed 100% Juglans Regia but it was isolated many many years ago by the Caucasus mountains. A lot of wood coming out of California was referred to as "French" when the color was light. We can thank Wally Reiswig and others for that. California English was at least two different subspecies of Juglans Regia. In the furthest southern groves the lighter color wood tended to be grafted to roots. The other subspecies was generally grafted up north. Of course over time that changed and never made any difference anyway. They did cross pollinate with Claro and there you have Bastogne. Incidentally, Bastogne is FAR more rare than most believe. There is a great deal of old growth Claro with above average density for its species that gets pawned off as "Bastogne". True Bastogne, like the large tree Don Allen and Fred Wenig cut, is very rare and further, it is sterile | |||
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Thank you for your comments, they are helpful. In my last custom rifle I used a stick of New Zealand raised regia. It is far better wood that the black, claro, and Cali English I handled in my quest for the right blank. I was at one point sworn off English and ready to go so far as cherry due to some of the wood I was viewing from California and Oregon. | |||
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