When I was a kid of 11 or 12 I made a stock from a Butternut plank for a savage 340 .222 that had a broken stock. A kid, no money, few tools and little talent but made a serviceable stock that served me well for a few years until I sold the gun. Even checkered it with an old dull Herters checkering tool my grandpa had. Butternut can be a pretty lighter colored wood with similar grain patterns to walnut but soft, softer than a cheap Claro blank and made for some fuzzy crooked checkering, I called it the over run pattern, lol.
On that note I've always wondered why some trees have fiddle back figure and some don't, trees grown side by side the same age one will and one won't. Same as maple, some will be fiddleback, some birdseye, and the next one beside it will be plainer than a 2x4 spruce stud. Always wondered about that.
