I'm continuing to have a hellava time logging into this site and usually just give up and go to a more user friendly site. Regardless I have one rifle with drop dead gorgeous "french" walnut AAA grade at least. Sometimes on a slow hunting day I get side tracked stareing deep into the figure or wondering if I can push my finger into it to add or delete a swirl or two. I rarely put that rifle on a horse because many of us know how little horses care for nice, or any, rifles.

What? No picture of that 32? Sounds gorgeous.

I was glad I had synthetic on my goose gun today. Gad, the jungle I had to crawl through to get to the marsh where Pearl lost a goose Saturday! We finally got it but my gawd that alder and poplar jungle was unbelievable! Even if I'd had the Pittsburg Steelers' offensive line clearing the way, a fine wood stock would still have got beat to crap. Man, that was awful. I'm actually hurting all over. My guns are tools not art forms. I appreciate the ones that are art forms but I don't have any use for them. I'd ruin them the way I hunt.

There are some beautiful stocks made of maple. Oak is too heavy and porous to make a decent stock.
Ish, I too have always wanted a fine English marblecake walnut stock. IMO it's the most beautiful wood there is for guns.

Ok Dave, now we all need to see this fine-stocked-shotgun,Pretty PLEASE?

What?! Petzal has a shotgun! I guess next your gonna tell me Bourjaily has a pistol. You guys really ARE Gun Nuts. Col. Askins would be proud.

I bought 2 identical SPIII's from Beretta, sight unseen(I have a buddy who is a higher up at Beretta USA)when I unpacked them I was a little surprised at the difference in the two stocks.
One was a rich deep dark "traditional" color, the other was a little lighter shade and "tiger striped" wit a golden iridescence when the light hit it just right.
It was a tough decision as to which to keep,and which to give as a gift.

I agree that having a wood stock truly give a firearm its own character. One thing that I have been wondering lately is why walnut the wood of choice in the firearms industry? Is it simply tradition or does the properties of the wood come into play. Ash is the standard for baseball bats, but I believe that is do to the ability to flex and still remain strong. I have nothing against walnut, it really is a beautiful type of wood, however there are other kinds like oak and maple, which are mighty fine looking too. Is there someone who could shed some light on this?

I love wood stocks. It was the beautiful grain that, at least in part, convinced me to buy my Silver Pigeon instead of a Citori (always liked the feel of a Berreta over a Browning anyway). But synthetics definitely have their place. Just don't think of synthetic-stocked guns as heirlooms, but a nice wood stock...now that's something to cherish for generations.

There really have been more problems logging on to this site in the past few weeks than ever before. Web Administrator, figure it out before you lose your audience...while Petzal and Bourjaily certainly are the cornerstones, it is the contributors that make the Gun Nuts the best hunting/shooting blog on the net (if you have ever tried to have a serious discussion on any other blogs you know what I'm talking about).

Charlie Yellott is certainly the fine gunsmith you say he is. I have had work done by him in years past and I cannot say too many good things about it. I am fortunate in that I don't live very far away from his somewhat remote location. Decent gunsmiths seem to be a vanishing breed these days.

Yeah, we lost one of our best contributors, Happy Myles, over the clunkiness and sometimes impossible nature of the website. He joins a long list of others who had enough.

Happy Myles posted that he was tired of the "obscene comment' autoresponse and log-on issues and politely said his farewell.

I think the faulty obscenity filter has a strange sense of political correctness.

Count yet another vote on behalf of a beautiful, figured walnut stock. Dave mentions Juglans regia, which is the Turkish walnut that is so highly prized. A variant of Juglans regia is Circassian walnut, trees native to the Caucusus region in the former USSR, north of Turkey and Iran. Circassian walnut stocks are as nice to look at as a Victoria's Secret catalog. To answer northernminnesotaguy2's question of "Why walnut for gun stocks?". I once asked this question of a fellow who owned a walnut tree farm in northern California that specialzed in Claro walnut stock blanks starting at $750. He said that while other woods (oak, sugar maple) are harder than walnut, walnut handles the "shock" of the gun shot better than most any other wood; that maple and oak might occasionally shatter under stiff recoil.

To all who complained about the problems getting on this blog. Count me among you, because I have to log on twice, and sometimes my comments don't register. I forwarded your comments to the blog administrator, and I'd appreciate hearing if there's any change.I still have to log on twice, but I'm afraid to screw with it as it would probably only get worse.

To buckstopper: I have several shotguns, and I shoot them whether I need to or not.

To those who like walnut. I don't know if I can get a photo of Charlie Yellott's Model 32, but I can show you some of my guns.

Attempted to post a pic of a Winchester 21 with fancy American black walnut to prove Petzal's point about wetting yourself.......but it rejected it saying my comment could not contain obscene words....I assume they were talking about Petzal.

i know that as far as accurate rifles are concerned, wood is out. call me old fashioned, or hard headed, i really do not care. to me a plasti-rifle is something that you beat half to death, and no one will care. they make great military and police weapons. or weapons to be used under terrible conditions. but a nice wood stock, brings a rifle alive. it gives it its own personality. which can cause accuracy problems i suppose. but in the 42 years i have been hunting, i have never had a wood stock cause enough of an accuracy problem to make any difference. can a wood stocked rifle, shoot a 1/4 moa group? certainly. can it do it on every day, regardless of the heat and humidity, well, maybe not. but it will still look a lot better than any plasti-rifle out there.