Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Cherry Wood for Gunstock Material

A friend of mine recently cut down a cherry tree. He wonders if he can use some of the beautiful wood as rifle or pistol stock material. I told him I would write a note on this site and see what someone much more knowledgeable would have for advice on the topic. Is cherry wood good gun stock material?

I have used it for pistol grips,end caps and forend tips looks good with a light walnut or maple stock. Never had a hunk large enough for a rifle or shotgun stock.

It can make very nice rifle stocks. Good balance of hardness and workability.

Built many a cabinet and cabinet doors out of cherry. It's probably strong enough cross grain , but it shears longitudinally much more than walnut. I would advise against the project unless it's a light kicker.

Idaho cherry is probably not wild black cherry and probably grew under quite a bit of cultivation (watering) for fruit production... That would lead to wide growth rings which mean weaker wood.

Black cherry growing wild overlaps with black walnut for density and most mechanical properties are very similar, density for density. Black cherry in denser examples is perfectly good stock wood for most any application.

Fruit cherry would probably only be useful for pistol grips...

My buddy's tree was grown in Wisconsin. Up in Packer country.

I stocked a 788 rem in 6mm with cherry. beautiful and holds true. fairly easy to work, much like good black walnut. dense enough for checkering and carving, after your buddy's wood seasons for 3 to five years go for it.

I'll confess to liking cherry for stock work. I have built a few muzzle loaders, a bunch of pistol grips, and a couple rifle stocks out of it over the years. All of it Pennsylvania black cherry from up in the northern forests. I like the characteristics that Art alluded to, combined with the darkening it takes on as it ages.

So much of the "good" cherry has disappeared into kitchen cabinetry so as to make finding tight grained dense examples a real challenge anymore. I guess I'm partly to blame too, for I executed several yacht interiors out of cherry in recent years. (You should see the one made out of 600 board feet of tightly curled cherry. OMG, I cried every time I switched on the saw!))

If it is a wild tree and grew slowly it should make fine stock wood. Cherry is rarely as figured as walnut, but it is mighty nice when it is. I have a large bunch of very nicely figured cherry blanks. Crotch wood is pretty reliable and on a big cherry can be much larger than walnut. Crotch wood is always denser than straight grained wood from the same tree, therefore stronger.

Much straighter grained cherry looks best boardsawn.

Do not kiln dry it and let it sit for as long as possible... Many stock makers will not touch wood less than ten years dry.

My experience with cherry wood is basically blackpowder rifles (only made one conventional riflestock from this wood).

Cherry tends to be very easy to work and just as strong (if not stronger) than walnut. It does not typically have as much figure (there are a few exceptions...although rare) as walnut, but has a very pleasing color. It is easily dense enough to hold carving, and certainly checkering.

The idea of board sawing cherry is right (with the exception of those RARE pieces with exceptional grain). It seldom gains anything by quarter sawing.

The real downside of cherry is weight. It is normally about 10-20% heavier than walnut. This isn't a problem unless you are trying to build a 6.5 pound rifle.

The bottom line is that if you are looking for a great rifle of normal to heavy weigh and want a dark, well colored stock...cherry is just fine. If you want an ultra-light rig with outstanding figure.....maybe you should look somewhere else.

Uhhhh.... Not so much... Cherry on average is significantly less dense than black walnut. It is similar to claro walnut in density and Eurpoean walnuts are somewhere in between.

Of course there is significant overlap in densities of woods grown under different conditions and with straight versus highly-figured grain... But on average, cherry is significantly lighter than black walnut.

Have a good sized back cherry tipped over & wedged, was pondering what to do with it...

If there is a good big crotch it should be cut down the middle to create two big "Y"s and then each slab cut down to about 2.5" thick. That will be the single most reliable place to find a good blank or two.

The secret to drying wood properly is slowing down the water loss, not speeding it up!

Paint the ends and the crotch figure surfaces. Best is "Greenwood Sealer" but I have used BLO with a bunch of wax melted into it and painted on. Even plain old latex paint will help tremendously. The very wildly twisted figure will put a lot of end grain out there to lose water very quickly... That needs to be slowed down.

As to the trunk it is best sawn "through and through" which means just a series of boards like the whole log went through a gang saw and made JUST a complete set of slices from the whole log. Each slice will have wane edge down each side...

The soil and conditions the tree grew in will determine how good the wood is... The more stress the better the wood, to a point. Width of the sapwood is a function of growing conditions and genetics, but MI tends to produce less sap than farther East (in general).

Stack with some thick stuff on bottom and top, thin stuff in the middle. Sticker closely and uniformly and then cover to slow the drying. The cover should not touch the pile. Lift the cover regularly to circulate some dry air and leave it off if there is a lot of water running out.

It is the middle stages of drying where the greatest care is needed. Cherry tends to stickerstain so make sure your stickers are good quality and uniform dry stuff.

Thanks Art

PM for a phone number if you like and feel free to give me a call while you are processing it to see if you think I can help during the actual cutting.

eta... Or the stickering, which is truly the critical aspect of producing decent lumber.

will do Art & thanks for the help

most of my woodworking has been done with a chain saw for the wood boiler...

Resurrecting this old thread. Wonder if anyone has any pictures of cherry stocked rifles, knife handles, or pistol stocks

Ideally, shouldn't you wait a long time before you cut it into boards?
I'd seal the ends and I don't think I'd even take the bark off for at least 3 years.

Your black cherry from Wisconsin should be good wood.
My location in the south of the state is weird for cherry.
Right here, it grows well, but quality is not great. 50 miles north that changes.
20 miles west (on the Allegheny Plateau) it is also much better.

There seem to be different opinions about using it for stockwood.
I know nothing about stockmaking, but cherry would concern me.

Having experience cutting it on sawmills, using it to build stuff around the farm,
And using it for firewood, it splits real easy. Unless it has a funky twisted grain,
then it can be darn strong, but will still have places it splits easy.


If I was doing a hero movie shot splitting a piece of hard wood,
straight grained cherry would be a decent choice.

Wondering about stocks for a Ruger Service Six made out of cherry. Can't seem to find any for sale online. Wondering if anyone here on the Fire has any experience making handgun grips out of cherry.