Walnut vs Beech for gun stocks

for the best performance i like my wood hard as a rock ...

Based on my personal experience with air rifles of both the types of wood mentioned in the OP, I would have bet my next month's income that walnut is harder than beech. 

My first PCP was an Air Arms S510 with a beech stock. I chose the beech because it was $100 cheaper than the walnut version. My next PCP (purchased 2 months later) was a Daystate Regal XL with a walnut stock -- there was no other option offered by Daystate.

These two rifles have beautiful traditional lines and both are among the most accurate I've ever owned. However, from day one until the day I sold the S510, I regretted my choice of beech vs walnut, because any bump -- even minor, it seemed -- caused a ding in the stock. Not so with the walnut on the Regal. If I'd had it to do over, I would choose the more durable walnut stock and gladly fork over the extra funds. Not to mention, the walnut on the Regal is much prettier, with the fine grain quite evident under the finish.

In any event, I sold the S510 (my very first PCP) about 2 years ago -- not because of the stock, but because of the length (over 50 inches with a much-needed LDC).

Thanks for the info.

+1

Not gun related, but I thought I would share. The hardest wood on that chart (there are a few woods that are harder that aren’t on the chart) is Brazilian Cherry. Last summer I built a dinning room table from Brazilian Cherry for its hardness. It’s also extremely dense as you might guess. Beautiful color and some nice figure .

My TX200 is walnut as is the HW35E

My R1 is beech.

I like both woods but I like the look of the beech when properly cared for…

Excellent information, thanks for posting 

Bear of grayling....nice explanation, thanks for going to the trouble and effort on creating this article !! Like so many others I also felt the walnut to be harder as it holds up so much better in real life scenerios. 

Very interesting info! Thanks for sharing. 

And here is #1 on the list for those wondering what Brazilian Ebony looks like.

I will add that not all examples of a species are similar with regards to hardness. The orientation of the grain, knots, heartwood vs sapwood come into play too. The two are so close in terms of the Janka scale that most people may not notice a perceivable difference.

Beech is not Beech. The American Beech is probably my favorite of all North American hardwoods, alive that is. The visual aesthetics of this tree is striking, from the elephant like skin bark, to the above ground root system, to the fact that they keep their leaves until Spring (albeit they turn brown). Now, the European Beech has the more attractive grain. The Beech you see used for stocks is mostly European.

One other important note is that Black Walnut is rot resistant to a degree. This makes this particularly species appealing in several aspects, especially for constant field use.

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Beech is much heavier than Walnut, and will never look as good as the best figured Walnut. For me, that = Walnut being best.

If you are a benchrest shooter for example, then weight is a plus, and stability is more important than looks. In that Case Beech is better.

So it depends.

Strength and stability of the stock with our air rifles often unsupported/shroud tensioned barrels? Not sure that the stock will actually have any impact on accuracy, unlike a bedded powder burner.



My R9 in Beech is gorgeous and well made, but compared to my walnut stocks on Kral and powder burners, not so much. Also on the R9 you can feel the additional weight AND stability. It really feels like you use it to play baseball. The Walnut stocks do not offer that impression at all. Another beech stock I have is on my Marauder. This is NOT such a nice well made stock, it's fat, ungainly and needlessly "beemy" combined with the weight of Beech, my Marauder is easily two pounds heavier than specs advertise. It too feels like it could drive railroad spikes, in fact I actually think it could. But it is a wholly dissatisfying feel.

Walnut actually just "feels" better IMHO. Beech feels like a guitar neck or axe handle

“Your R1 looks to be an early model. In the the 80’s and 90’s Beeman had Weihrauch color and finish their Beech stocked models in a beautiful, deep, rich color and velvety, satin finish. Absolutely stunning. I do not understand why Weihrauch doesn’t do this now. Now they just use a simple spray stain and clear coat. Cheap!”



The R1 has had about 200 applications of hand-rubbed BLO..

Apparently English walnut is harder than American walnut, 1220 Janka hardness. You have to stain beech to make it look like anything and even then it’s not pretty, IMHO.

https://www.wood-database.com/english-walnut/


My beech 34.

I am also a woodworker. My dining room table is american cherry as are most of the parts of it's 10 chairs. I finished both last year. I once used beech for kitchen drawers. I got it cheaper than maple and it looks a lot the same, at least to me. Without stain is is white like maple, or walnut or cherry sapwood. It is a durable wood but in furniture is is normally used as a secondary wood - like drawer sides and backs like in my kitchen. Gun stocks of beech seem to be stained to imitate walnut.

It should not be a problem in a gunstock but walnut sun bleaches. Furniture made of walnut if left in direct sunlight will gradually become much lighter colored. Cherry initially darkens but after more than a decade it will get lighter too. I made my daughter a kitchen table out of cherry in 2008 and I noticed when I visited her that the top was getting very light colored. Chairs not so much. The nicest gunstocks actually come from the stump of the tree. Ideal is to have the part from the hand grip back out of the wood that was below ground and the wood forward from that point straight grained wood from above ground. You don't want the highly figured stump wood where it would support the barrel because it is not very stable or strong. You want it back in the butt where you get to use more of it and stability is not a big deal.

Walnut is semi ring porus. Oak is ring porus. It gives the wood some of it's appearance. There are rays of large pore wood going vertically in the tree surrounded by smaller pored wood. If you want a walnut stock to be totally smooth you have to fill the grain.

I like walnut gun stocks but all three of my PCPs have plastic stocks. They are servicable. Beech is prettier than plastic but it is also a servicable alternative. Much cheaper than walnut and works fine (like plastic does). I'm not trying to slam beech, just pointing out it is not normally chosen when appearance is important. I have some mahogany from old pews I may someday make a air gun stock out of. It is light and pretty but also pretty soft. I made one for one of my rim fires out of laminated maple and walnut. The outsides are maple with a little figure and there is an inside stripe of walnut.

Maple and Cherry are more commonly figured but walnut is sometimes that way too. Some trees just grow with figure throughout the wood but all trees have more interesting figured grain in the stump and also at crotches where limbs come out of the trunk. But just like stumps, crotches are not very stable. The trees which have totally figured wood seem to be OK for stability. Some lumber dealers pick the figured wood out and sell it for 2 to 3 times as much and others just sell boards off the pile. Figured wood is harder to plane without chipout and tends to be denser but it is also beautiful. Lots of mills will not cut up stumps because they do not want to damage their blades with rocks in the stump.

Not to be a wet blanket, but what about weight? Typically, harder woods are heavier woods. Example, if you can believe what I found on the Internet Lumber and Hardwood Weight Calculator - Inch Calculator says that

ebony is around 5.5 pounds per board foot.

Birch is about 3 pounds per board foot.

Walnut is about 3 pounds per board foot.

I guess I'm trying to say, if you are on the bench harder and heavier is good. If you are field walking, maybe pick a lighter, reasonably hard wood for the stock.

It seems that the bench, where you are least likely to dent ding or otherwise damage a stock is where the harder woods excel, while woods walking where one is most likely to dent ding or otherwise damage a stock is where a lighter, therefore softer stock would excel. It's an oxymoron.