Indians For Guns

Has anyone considered "Karanj" AKA "Honge"?(Indian Beech-Pongamia Pinnata)

Pongamia Pinata AKA Derris Indica is NOT Indian Beech. names have been jugled. You can use teak,Acacia Nilotica ( babul ). Thespesia populenia , Shesham and even Abessia Lebeck. The is a vested interest in promoting Walnut ( junlans Nigra). British era 303 rifles where stocked with teak wood and Harwicka Binata . This was authoritatively informed by a late IFS officer who was an authority on trees and timber. Some guys are fleecing gun enthusiasts with the idea that only WALNUT is the only wood for buttstocks. The cheap and best would be the PROSOPHIS JULIFORA or Mesquite that is used in american woodstocks.

veeveeaar wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 07, 2020 10:23 pm

Pongamia Pinata AKA Derris Indica is NOT Indian Beech. names have been jugled. You can use teak,Acacia Nilotica ( babul ). Thespesia populenia , Shesham and even Abessia Lebeck. The is a vested interest in promoting Walnut ( junlans Nigra). British era 303 rifles where stocked with teak wood and Harwicka Binata . This was authoritatively informed by a late IFS officer who was an authority on trees and timber. Some guys are fleecing gun enthusiasts with the idea that only WALNUT is the only wood for buttstocks. The cheap and best would be the PROSOPHIS JULIFORA or Mesquite that is used in american woodstocks.

Walnut is light and strong and easy to carve and also the grains or pattern look beautiful. The best gun makers use walnut.

It would be very expensive to use walnut in mass produced military rifles like .303 so other easily and cheaply available woods were used.

Your thoughts

The IOF uses good quality wood possibly walnut for .30-06 rifles.

I cant find the original source, will keep looking
Besides the strength and grain etc so endearing to the stock maker and gun owner, about 30 years ago, a high end turntable maker used walnut for the pick up head and discovered that the sound processing and other sonic related qualities improved manifold. This led to a quantum change in our understanding of the qualities of walnut with reference to sound and vibration.

So we gun owners seemed to have discovered the right wood for the job, far ahead of the world.

With the advent of laminates, even bamboo is now in use for stock making. To the extent, a famous F class shooter made himself a stock from 4x2 timber,painted it and glued in the action, and went onto to win his usual tally. Just to cock a snook at the sacrosant walnut users.
My limited understanding is, wood has a better damping/ absorbing quality than many synthetics. This would naturally help with the interface with wood and metal and, ability to maintain a modicum of consistency when it came to the various mechanical forces like torque and the sonic displacements.

The OP has asked about Honne, and another species I am familiar with is Matthi, in Karnataka, used in diverse sectors, from furniture to house frames, and did stand the vagaries of mankind.

It will need inputs from a user/ stock maker about warp/shrink and other parameters of indigenous woods used for gun stocks

Try Teak. You can get really good grain patterns if you search the Timber merchants. It is easily available and much cheaper than walnut which ofcourse is the best, but difficult to get in India. Teak is heavier and has a greater tendency to crack and warp. With proper staining it can easily match the walnut grain. Contrary to what has been posted here, it is softer than walnut and much easier on shaping and checkering tools.