Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire February Firewood Festival

Burning gun stocks is a sin.

Gun stocks come out of the stumps.

Of course, I prefer to burn oak rather than black walnut. Last summer I answered a Craigslist ad for free firewood. Never know what you will find on craigslist, half the ads are BS.
I had to drive 23 miles. But the guy had a big white oak on the ground. You could drive right up to it. I could bust up the 24 inch drums with two whacks of the Fiskars. Fresh cut and zero rot. What a score!

I got a truck load from that tree, and the next day went out there with my brother and we both got truck loads.


Here is my brother whacking that white oak with the Fiskars.
I sawed, he split.

We got three truckloads of pristine white oak. What a deal!
A month after that, I answered another craigslist ad, the guy claimed he had a bunch of oak and other wood. I drove 26 miles and this guy had nothing! He had cleared 3 acres, a year earlier, for his new house to be built upon, and he had the bulldozer pile up all those trees. All the construction guys had been cutting firewood from that 40 foot long pile for a year. All the good wood was gone, nothing left but stumps with dirty roots, and this guy knew it!

This guy was looking for a sucker to cut and haul trash wood, and he knew he needed to hire a pro to come over and load all that wood garbage up and haul it to the dump.

So it goes with craigslist, one ad is just great, and the next ad, you drive an hour and 20 minutes round trip and get nothing. And, at 50 cents a mile to operate a vehicle, I paid $26 to look at that bullsh*t artist's pile of junk wood. 26 bucks and a wasted hour and a half.

So, yes I would rather have oak but when I have some premium black walnut, just 1 mile from my house, I am going to get it while the getting is good.

And, I am going to split that truck load today and put it in the wood shed, and go back tomorrow and get another truck load.

How big do your locusts get? Ours rarely get more than 12” at the base but may be 50’ tall. Maybe we have some kind of disease in the grove causing them to go pithy.

We have a couple ancient honey locusts out on the ranch that are probably 30” diameter. Huge 4 and 6 inch thorns growing out of the trunk. I have no idea if they’re good firewood or not, they’re fairly uncommon and I’ve never cut one.

I would go to a real festival called Firewood Festival. Sounds like a good way to meet naive white girls. Boomers, post your daughters and granddaughters photos please.

Species Weight (lbs./
Cord) Green Weight (lbs./
Cord) Dry Heat per Cord
(Million BTUs) % of
Green Ash Ease of
Splitting Smoke Sparks Coals Fragrance Overall
Quality
Alder
2540 17.5
Easy
Moderate Good Slight
Apple 4850 3888 27.0 135 Medium Low Few Good Excellent Excellent
Ash, Green 4184 2880 20.0 100 Easy Low Few Good Slight Excellent
Ash, White 3952 3472 24.2 121 Medium Low Few Good Slight Excellent
Aspen, Quaking 2160 18.2 Easy Few Good Slight
Basswood (Linden) 4404 1984 13.8 69 Easy Medium Few Poor Good Fair
Beech 3760 27.5 Difficult Few Excellent Good
Birch 4312 2992 20.8 104 Medium Medium Few Good Slight Fair
Boxelder 3589 2632 18.3 92 Difficult Medium Few Poor Slight Fair
Buckeye, Horsechestnut 4210 1984 13.8 69 Medium Low Few Poor Slight Fair
Catalpa 4560 2360 16.4 82 Difficult Medium Few Good Bad Fair
Cherry 3696 2928 20.4 102 Easy Low Few Excellent Excellent Good
Chestnut 18.0 Good Good
Coffeetree, Kentucky 3872 3112 21.6 108 Medium Low Few Good Good Good
Cottonwood 4640 2272 15.8 79 Easy Medium Few Good Slight Fair
Dogwood 4230 High Difficult Few Fair
Douglas-fir 3319 2970 20.7 103 Easy High Few Fair Slight Good
Elm, American 4456 2872 20.0 100 Difficult Medium Few Excellent Good Fair
Elm, Siberian 3800 3020 20.9 105 Difficult Medium Few Good Fair Fair
Fir, White 3585 2104 14.6 73 Easy Medium Few Poor Slight Fair
Hackberry 3984 3048 21.2 106 Easy Low Few Good Slight Good
Hemlock 2700 19.3 Easy Many Poor Good
Honeylocust 4640 3832 26.7 133 Easy Low Few Excellent Slight Excellent
Juniper, Rocky Mountain 3535 3150 21.8 109 Medium Medium Many Poor Excellent Fair
Larch (Tamarack) 3330 21.8 Easy-med Many fair Slight Fair
Locust, Black 4616 4016 27.9 140 Difficult Low Few Excellent Slight Excellent
Maple, Other 4685 3680 25.5 128 Easy Low Few Excellent Good Excellent
Maple, Silver 3904 2752 19.0 95 Medium Low Few Excellent Good Fair
Mulberry 4712 3712 25.8 129 Easy Medium Many Excellent Good Excellent
Oak, Bur 4960 3768 26.2 131 Easy Low Few Excellent Good Excellent
Oak, Gambel 30.7
Oak, Red 4888 3528 24.6 123 Medium Low Few Excellent Good Excellent
Oak, White 5573 4200 29.1 146 Medium Low Few Excellent Good Excellent
Osage-orange 5120 4728 32.9 165 Easy Low Many Excellent Excellent Excellent
Pine, Lodgepole
2610 21.1
Easy
Many Fair Good Fair
Pine, Ponderosa 3600 2336 16.2 81 Easy Medium Many Fair Good Fair
Pine, White 2250
15.9

Easy Moderate poor Good
Pinyon 3000 27.1 Easy Many
Poplar 2080 Low Easy Many Fair Bitter
Redcedar, Eastern 2060 13.0 Easy Low Many Poor Slight Fair
Redcedar, Western 2950 2632 18.2 91 Medium Medium Many Poor Excellent Fair
Spruce 2800 2240 15.5 78 Easy Medium Many Poor Slight Fair
Spruce, Engelmann 2070 15.0 78 Easy Few Poor Slight
Sycamore 5096 2808 19.5 98 Difficult Medium Few Good Slight Good
Walnut, Black 4584 3192 22.2 111 Easy Low Few Good Good Excellent
Willow 4320 2540 17.6 88 Easy Low Few Poor Slight Poor


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Sorry for this chopped up chart. It is from Utah University.

https://forestry.usu.edu/forest-products/wood-heating

It is hard to read but it shows black walnut at 22 million btu and red oak at 24 million. It does show white oak at 29 million. The different charts will give you slightly different numbers.
I do have three or four dozen oaks on my 48 acres, but oaks make acorns for deer and birds to eat so I don't want to whack any of my oaks.

We don't have hardwood like you guy's. This is Douglas Fir, and its about the best we have, as greydog says, lodgepole is great firewood too, and some of my customers only want Pine. Its been pretty good for snow so I can still get out but not for long as 6 more inches of snow is going to shut me down.

Well, the according to the Utah chart Douglas fir is 20.7 million BTU. That is outstanding for a pine tree.
By the way I spent the summer working for an outfitter near Manson Creek BC. We wanted to get out into the wilderness, and we succeeded when we got to north central British Columbia.

The tree's are standing down in there, the dead one's..... and they need to be felled and pulled up the hill.

The Black locust size in a grove are about what you stated at the base. The trees that are "open grown" can get twice that size at the base. We have the Honey locust here, too and they are nasty to work up because of the thorns, but they have a high BTU rating for firewood.

Unless it’s feather crotch

I cut and split a full pickup load of ancient black walnut today in anticipation of the norther that’s supposed to arrive about midnight. I should have taken some pictures as it was beautiful wood, nearly purple and very wavy. It has been standing dead since forever, three trunks from 14” to 20” in diameter off the same stump. Stump is burly and knotty as can be, probably 24”x 42” oval shape it would make a wild coffee table. I’m having a cold beer by the warm stove to rest my splitting muscles right now.

I’ve got 3 shagbark hickories down from when they our fiber optic in December.

A 24” and 2-18” trees.

No hurry, I still have about 3 cords in my furnace shed.

I’ll cut them up before the ticks start crawling. Should make a nice amount of some primo BTU. And set some aside for bbq pit coaling.

Hickory is primo for BTU. Hard to split with a maul but great if you have a gasoline powered splitter.

However, three years ago I got a truck load of cut and split hickory delivered. Looked like great fire wood. After two years I began to burn it. The wood was covered with fine, powdered sawdust, like flour. I found that it had hickory bark beetles. The wood looked pristine when it was delivered two years earlier.
I have never had beetles like this in firewood and I have been burning for a long time.

From now on I will take a pass on hickory.

Only the pretty ones.

I split up that wood, in the OP, and stacked it in the woodshed.
Today, I went out to get another truck load. 26 degrees, and 18 mph wind, very light snow.


The black walnut tree keeps getting smaller.




I got another load. Took an hour and a half to cut it and split it and load it up.
Used the little Husqvarna, it was singing today. The Husqvarna puts out high rpm it has a unique sound.



Good day to have a big Norwegian wood stove.

What no snow?

We have mostly piñon at our place, with some scrub oak, ponderosa and Douglas fir.

The Utah firewood chart ranks the piñon at 27.1 million BTU which is pretty good. It’s very fragrant with sticky sap. I’ve found it burns the best with very little creosote buildup if I let it dry for two years (if cut down while green) or one year (if dead when cut down).

Pinon at 27 million. A pine tree? Good God that is some great firewood. Never heard of it we don't have it here in the South.

Mebbe so, but they sure burn longer than the pure knot-free stuff. I am learning to like the knotty wood!