Where I live, there are no local woods that are suitable for gunstocks.

How about good old swamp tamerak? Harder'n flint.Dad used them for gate posts I bet they are still there.

You better work out on steroids if you get a tamarac stock. Them things is HEAVY!

Castandblast -- you're from Skach'wan -- you got no trees bigger'n Saskatoon bushes! You'd have to laminate a bushel of them together.

(I know you got trees in the north)

Walnut seems be be top of the line. The birch is of course used as a cheaper stock.
The notion of a stock converting to toothpicks when fired is only so appealing.

Here in Oregon, we see a fair number of custom stocks made out of myrtlewood. The color and grain can be absolutely spectacular.

Myrtlewood trees grow down on our coastline and I've been told that the only places that myrtlewood occurs is here and the Holy Land. I saw some mrytlwood trees on our recent looong pilgrimage to Israel. Whether it grows elsewhere, I cannot say.

Here is a photo of a decent piece of myrtlewood.

God Bless,

Steve

Wow dogzapper that is a swanky looking piece of wood!!!
Is this on one of your shotguns??

Keith when I was a kid my Pop tricked me into trying to saw down an old tamerac post with a swedesaw I did it but busted the blade when it toppled over I think it took me all day to get through it

Yep, and a feller doesn't want to put too much seasoned tamarac into the woodstove all at once if he doesn't want to have a warped stove, neither.

I have heard intresting things about tamarac over the years.
One being the wood made lighter, faster clipper ships than oak, but with a shorter life span.
Another being the wood is good for well pits, and such because it stands moisture well.
Yet another that it makes poor building lumber twisting with changes of season.
A sawmill man told me his grandfather used some tamarac studs in a kitchen wall that moved summer, to winter, causing the grandmother to complain vigorously. I then ask the sawmill man, "What do you do with it then?" he said, "It goes through with the rest of the pine".

We tried to mill some back in Sk but there was so much timberbind in it that it could'nt be sawed at the little mill I worked at