Thinking about the stock for my 6.5x55 I will be building soon and I need help.

Here are The Options for the stock I want

Claro
Grade AA - Feather Crotch or Burl in Butt $259.00 $15.00 $274.00
Black
Grade AAA Extra Fancy $259.00 $15.00 $274.00
English
Grade AA Fancy $259.00 $15.00 $274.00
Bastogne
Grade AA Fancy $259.00 $15.00 $274.00
Quilted Maple
Grade AA Fancy $259.00 $15.00 $274.00

So I can get AA Claro, English, Bastogne, or Maple for the same price of AAA Black walnut. I saw a CZ 527 in .22 hornet the other day with a high luster blue job and maple stock and it looked fantastic. What do you all think?

Art, is your man, re: this question.

I'd leave that to you and your eyes. everyone has his or her own opnion as to what looks good, the same as how you hear music through a stereo system. What sounds good to me may not be your cup of tea. Look at the woods and see what trips your trigger. The fact that you thoughtthe maple looks fantastic may be a clue.

I'd go with English. But that's just me, not you and your tastes.

I've always like the maple. (this is one I am working on now)

Gorgeous.

There are way too many considerations to go into all the different points about which is best for your application and taste, but start with a few simple points to ponder.

When you spend that kind of money for a piece of wood you should be looking at the exact piece of wood, not a grade. Grading is inexact and highly subjective. I find sellers tend to grade far higher than I... Think about the grader holding a piece of wood that should make exhibition grade, until he notices serious run-out in the wrist grain. If you were building a DGR that would be a deal killer, but what about that 22Hornet? How should he grade it? By "expected grade rules" (there are none) he should not be able to sell it as a utility blank even. But it will sell for a lot more than that.

Bastogne generally sells for more than English of like grade and quite a bit more than claro. The seller likely shifts grade to make up the difference.

The maple is even farther out of whack. But to go there you have some extra considerations. All quilted maple is bigleaf. The figure type is not found in any of the hard maples. It varies tremendously in density and amount of figure. Slight changes in the orientation of the blank make huge changes in what the stock will look like. While not quilt this picture shows a couple bigleaf stocks oriented 90 degrees from each other... They were side-by-side in the tree.


True quilt, oriented properly and cut from a dense stick will have tremendous depth and a wind-ruffled-water-like appearance. It will be pricey, but worth it. What will the blank you are considering really look like?

Sorry about the rambling, but there really are lots and lots more considerations... And your tastes are the only ones that really matter.
art

The more I see the maple the more inclined I am. The birdseye in that second stock is fabulous.

Thanks for the advice. I will make sure to request pictures of a few maple blanks and have a look at them before making a decision.