1: Custom Model 70 with Fajen English Walnut Stock 2: Cooper Model 22 with English Walnut Stock 3: Cooper Model 22 with English Walnut Stock 4: Cooper Model 52 with American Walnut (Claro) Stock

In the beginning, firearms--called handcannons at the time--consisted of a simple hollow tube made of iron, but it eventually dawned on some bright fellow that attaching a handle to the contraption would make it easier to shoot. And since wood was both handy and easy to whittle into the desired shape, it became the logical choice for those first gunstocks.

Stocks made of various synthetic materials have stolen some of the popularity of wood among American hunters, but worldwide, wood is still the king of riflestocks. After several decades of hunting in other countries, I can count on one hand the number of Europeans I have seen carrying rifles with stocks made of anything but wood, and this applies today same as it did many years ago.

Truly Timber
A number of different woods have been and still are used to make riflestocks, including maple, birch, beech, cherry, madrone, myrtle, persimmon, sassafras, mesquite, and walnut. For those who enjoy its light coloration, maple is a good choice due to its extreme hardness and great strength, but since it is quite heavy, it is most often used on varmint rifles. Birch, which is commonly seen on economy-priced rifles, is a bit stronger than walnut, but it weighs about the same as maple. Lack of contrasting figure makes it rather drab in appearance.

Walnut is the most popular, and three types are commonly used in making gunstocks. American black walnut, which is also called Claro walnut, is most often worn by factory rifles. English walnut--also known as French, Italian, Himalayan, Circassian, and a few other names--is used a lot in custom riflestocks and in stocks made for higher grades of rifles built by specialty companies. The third type of walnut is called Bastogne; it is a hybrid mix of English and black walnut that is created by grafting. The big soft spot in my heart is for the English variety, but running my hand over a nicely figured piece of Claro can also quicken my pulse rate.

Regardless of the type, walnut has a lot going for it, and at the top of the list is its lightness when compared to most other hardwoods. For instance, the factory stock worn by my Winchester Model 70 Featherweight in .270 weighs only 31 ounces.

Walnut is also quite strong for its weight. In its favor is a tight grain structure that allows it to be easily shaped, carved, and checkered. To many of us, most important of all is that no other wood comes close to being as beautiful as a piece of fine walnut. While not as abundant as it once was, walnut is still readily available.

Walnut has many desirable qualities, but I am afraid many American firearms writers have blown its shortcomings a bit out of proportion and turned away a good number of hunters. And I must confess to being as guilty of that as anyone. While it is true that a wood stock is not as strong as a good synthetic stock, only rarely is it not strong enough.

In almost 50 years of hunting with wood-stocked rifles, I have broken exactly one, and that incident was my own fault. While loading gear onto a boat during an Alaskan bear hunt, I carelessly placed my rifle--protected by nothing more than a soft case--somewhere it shouldn't have been, and one of the guides dropped a heavy box of canned goods on it. The stock came apart at its grip, the weakest part of any stock.