I have worked quite a lot of myrtle and love the stuff. I helped KKAlaska restock a rifle last winter for his first stock job. It is full of all sorts of extractives, pitches and gums, which give it a wonderful camphor smell when being worked. It has as much luster and depth as any of the best stock woods when finished.
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<br>The extractives cause drying problems because they do not allow the wood to dry uniformly. A long-dry blank will not move anymore than the best walnut once built into a stock. It is plenty hard enough and is comparable in weight to good English and strong enough to be used for any slender stock design you might care to use.
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<br>Laminate? Is that Greek or some other language? It sure does not belong in any discussion about a decent stock! But then I say the same thing about ANY plastic! ;-) Laminated stocks are poor options, IMO, because they weigh more, lose most of the intrinsic beauty of wood, checker poorly and I do not like the looks even a little bit...
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<br>But Myrtle is great!
<br>art
