Blaine
Stock laminates are run in the same direction mostly for looks. Plywood will never make a decent-looking stock. There are some plywoods with laminates arranged at various angles, but mostly pointed in the same general direction. They still look very ugly IMO.
Growth ring instabilities mentioned by Klik are really a non-issue with quality laminations. Juvenile wood from near the center of trees has the issues he mentions and in plywood mills it is a real concern, but stock laminates are not made from that type of lamination.
For your use in bench guns the weight is critical and laminates geared toward strength have enough resin injected under pressure to add enough weight to eliminate them as an option for you.
Wood is anything but consistent in each direction... In endgrain compression wood is really strong. In long grain tension it is ridiculously strong. Cross grain tension and compression is not great though. If you need strength in those directions it may not be there.
art
