Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Why does Kimber "select" French wood look awful?

Yup.

YUP

Beautiful rifle 28!

On Gunbroker now

Here's a couple:

I don't think this one is too bad. Some are rather plain looking, but most I have seen are fairly good. Sort of like the Ruger No. 1s were. I have a couple of really nice stocked No. 1s and others that have less figure than a 2x4 from Lowe's.

The wood that Kimber uses looks to be something other than walnut to me.. something about the creamy color just don't look right.

That's down right disgusting, m77

No reason to pick the ugliest one in the flock when you have choices.

Old Sheep herder/young sheep herder joke, but it applies.

I collect Ruger #1's, and a "wood lottery" comes with the turf. So I only buy the ones with nice wood. Most of the #1's you see don't look this good, but I have a few:



some of them are only decent, but the caliber makes them interesting, like this .475 Turnbull:

If you want light colored walnut buy French or English walnut. If you like dark wood like supergrades then buy black or Claro walnut. I like all them but only certain pieces. Some of the French or English walnuts are fencepost plain and so are some of the darker varieties of walnut. Some Winchester stocks are so plain and dark they look like they were dipped in chocolate. I think it great that walnut comes in so many colors, shades, contrast and grain pattern variety.

A better stain, fill and finish job would go a long ways to improving the look of the OP's stock. I was looking through an old gunsmithing book from the 50's or 60s a few months back and remember reading the portion on the need to adjust the staining to adjust the color tone of different walnut blanks. I'm guessing that part of the craft doesn't get a lot of attention from the mfg.

Cheesy has this one, so they are out there. Or perhaps a call to Kimber will get you something special.





No need to take the ugly one.

I'd be leaving something that pretty in the safe.

It's a beauty for sure. Is it wrong that I was admiring the stonework more, though ?

I'm just a heathen who prefers stainless/synthetic for now. I'll admire all the nice sticks here, though.

Nope.

Nicest one I've seen and if I owned it, it would be hunted.
They refinish stocks every day.

From the archives, it's been collecting dust lately..

And it is a plain one for sure, wish the wood had the same look when it was dry.

Sam,

Surely that's not rain on that wood. You can't hunt with walnut in the rain....