Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Who does after-market wood like this?

Would this considered crotch walnut?

I would say yes, and very nice at that. Most new wood like that is coming in from Turkey. If'n you gots to replace a stock , might as well go nice!
Wish i could see that french skip better, might know the hand that did it.

Closeup

Don't recognize the hand but nice job. Double border is smart for covering overruns. One of my personal least favorite cuts, the french skip, only because i am a lazy cutter! Like the pattern and gun bigley!

Factory stamped checkering is that a PE?

No, it is a 1977 99C, .22-250 Remington

Yes and very nicely sawn.

Whenever you get 2 completely different grains like that it was most likely sawn from the crotch of a tree.

Beautiful piece of wood. It deserved hand cut checkering.

Not pressed.

If that is not pressed checking then I will modify my comments above.

It deserved BETTER hand cut checkering

Close up of checkering.

KeithNyst

I was researching after Magnum Bob told me it was crotch Walnut and I found a website where a guy was making bass guitars from crotch Walnut and the wood looked identical to your stock. Beautiful!

Not trying to fight but if you look close at several spots on the finger guard radius of the pattern you can pick out overruns. That checkering in my opinion has been flooded with so much finish it looks like pressed. The inner bead border , inboard of the v groove finish border can' t be stamped. Granted my eyes are so bad i could be fos but thats what i see, after 50 years of scratching lines in wood. Cleaned up that checkering could be stunning.
Monte Kennedy and Bob Brownell were masters of the french skip.

Murray's comments on the 99C, pgs. 3-68&69
o 1965 99C introduced, impressed-checkering
o 1976 Skipped-checkered pattern adopted
o 1980 cut checkered stocks

In 1976 the 99CD was catalogued as "hand checkered" as a special feature. Trust me that this is pressed checkering. Absolutely beautiful wood on it.

Guess i need more eye surgery. Or a new laptop. Been viewing on a little tablet.

The went back and forth from pressed to cut, from machine cut to hand cut. It gets confusing

this sort of wood (especially American black walnut) is getting harder to come by, but it's only ever been had as a premium grade of wood (read: expensive)

JeffG

That has to represent a lot of years of growth. And it's going to take that many years for another one to replace it.

measuring the age of trees like that bumps into centuries

Black walnut is shade intolerant so most likely a specimen like that came from a park, a cemetary or out of somebody's yard. It is not found in mature forests, but in open areas and edges or in managed monoculture stands.

Very uncommon to find one that big and old that doesn't have a least some heart rot.