Art, Admittedly I spent much less time drying wood on the kilns than I did drying veneer. Kilns are a piss poor way to dry anything, they both lack in production and quality (Probably why veneer isn't kiln dried)
However I'm straight up calling bullschitt on the fact that any board has a greater strength and stability than a wood of similar density that has been laminated. It is straight up impossible. You can't grow a tree where every other layer (lets say 1/12" thick) runs the grain 90 degrees to itself and is glued and pressed at 300PSI.
I can prove it... Take a karate geek... They can punch clean through four 1/2" Fir boards. If you gave them the exact same test with ONE 5 ply 1/2" Fir plywood, they'd break knuckles on it...
Now, I'll make your next argument for you... A piece of half inch 12x12" plywood weighs more than a Fir board the same size... BUT, the rifle manufacturers are still using walnut patterns to make laminated stocks. You can go a helluva lot skinnier all over a stock using a chunk of Birch plywood. Schitt, if they drilled out about half the buttstock before they put the pad on, the lamimated stock would break even... Oh, and be stiffer, and more stable
