Pecan wood stocks?

[Texas by God]

4 years ago we had a freak summer storm with a harsh downdraft/ wind shear that broke two huge limbs from our tallest native pecan tree. A friend has a sawmill so he cut several bench top size 3" thick slabs for me. I have made knife handles and pistol grips and they turned out fine. Will this wood make a decent rifle stock? It has been drying for 4 years inside my shop.
Thanks in advance for your answers.

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[Der Gebirgsjager]

Yes it will. A friend of mine made one in my shop and it turned out quite well. I'm going to qualify the answer though, and state that I don't know if there are different species/varieties of pecan -- but if there are, like walnut I'd think that they'd all work. The stock my friend made was dense, heavy, and light brown with a greenish tint to it and with yellowish streaks of grain. Very attractive. The wood came out of Arkansas.

[ulav8r]

Pecan is closely related to hickory and is often sold as hickory by sawmills. It's hardness and strength is the same as hickory so it can double as a stock and as a hammer handle. Probably harder to inlet than walnut but should wear very well.

[telebasher]

One of the best allaround woods to smoke meats with too !

[Texas by God]

One of the best allaround woods to smoke meats with too !Oh I know this for sure!

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[knifemaker]

Make sure your slab is heartwood and not sapwood and you want the moisture content around 6%. Drying for 4 years in your shop should have the wood dry enough to make a gun stock that will not warp if you seal it good after finishing the stock.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

It should be very strong and resilient, but there is a quality that is hard to assess when you simply have a piece of it.

There is a very good article on unconventional stock woods in "The NRA Gunsmithing Guide Updated". (It is an excellent book, updated unfortunately only up t the early 80s or thereabouts, but the woods haven't changed. It includes an index of expansion in different degrees of humidity between green and 6% moisture content. Quite a few woods, mostly with disadvantages for at least some applications, score worse than walnut.

Obviously it isn't going to become green again, but I imagine the difference between different degrees of atmospheric humidity might be related to this. It might be worth cutting, smoothing and precisely measuring a couple of small samples, and seeing if the measurement changes in a week or two adjacent to a heating radiator and the kitchen sink.

If the colour is light, it might repay extra care to make sure you don't accidentally include some sapwood. It might also, like oak, split easily if you exert levering force on an embedded tool, despite being very strong when the job is done.

[sundog]

One of the best allaround woods to smoke meats with too !

You got that right! The finest.

[fixit]

As one who uses Hickory to build longbows, I can tell you that splitting is not one of the problems you’re likely To have with hickory! Hickory is one of the hardest to break the woods in the lumberyard where Bow building is concerned.

[fixit]

Sorry, not thinking clearly. Pecan, by extension, being a relative of Hickory, should have the same properties.

[knifemaker]

Texas just about any wood used for gunstocks will shrink or swell due to amount of moisture in the air, or being out in a rainstorm. I have made many rifle stocks over the years and do not have a problem with the stocks warping due to absorbing moisture. I prefer a Tru-oil finish on my stocks and the outer surface will get about 8-10 coats with the first 2-3 coats going on heavy to soak into the wood.
I also apply several coats in the barrel channel, magazine box & trigger cutout and even at the butt under the recoil pad. Seals the rifle up very well. If you have a slab of pecan that has the brown wood with dark, almost black streaks, you will have one very beautiful gun stock. Another beautiful wood that many do not think about using for gun stocks is Mesquite. My son has two Weatherby rifles that have custom mesquite stocks and they are very beautiful in color and very dense wood.

[oldred]

I have used pecan for several woodworking projects but not gun stocks, pecan is sometimes used for that purpose on cheaper guns. Those who have said it is similar to hickory are right, it's not quite as hard as hickory but very similar in almost every other way including color. Here is my opinion on using it for a gun stock, factory production using automated machinery it will produce a bland but very tough utility grade stock and may be OK for that but hand carving a stock from it???? It's not all that difficult to work but it is harder than common stock wood such as the various walnut woods and I would think it to be about the same as using Maple as far as hardness. The real question would be "why"? For all the time and effort you will be rewarded with a bland so-so looking stock that will be utility grade at best, a plain straight grain piece of walnut (for example) would be easier to work and a heck of a lot more attractive! Just having the pecan on hand is little reason to go to all that effort for such a plain looking stock unless you just want to practice stock making but there are much better woods for that.

[Dan Cash]

I agree with old red. A hickory/pecan stock will give you a heavy club with all the beauty of an axe handle that has (maybe) some figure. Hickory/pecan is hard on tool edges and difficult to work with a tendency to tear when carved.

[Texas by God]

Thank you all. I thought it would be cool to have a stock from it since my family's been here more than a century but I don't want a hard to carve ugly stock.


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[bdicki]

If it looks anything like this I would say go for it.
https://i.imgur.com/yyFE3uC.jpg

[JWT]

Hicory (Pignut) is Juglandaceae Carya glabra with a density of 52lb/sqft. Shrinkage: Radial: 7.2%, Tangential: 11.5%, Volumetric: 17.9%, T/R Ratio: 1.6
Pecan is Juglandaceae Carya illinoensis with a density of 46lb/sqft. Shrinkage: Radial: 4.9%, Tangential: 8.9%, Volumetric: 13.6%, T/R Ratio: 1.8
Black walnut is Juglandaceae Juglans nigra with a density of 38lb/sqft. Shrinkage: Radial: 5.5%, Tangential: 7.8%, Volumetric: 12.8%, T/R Ratio: 1.4
English walnut is Juglandaceae Juglans regia with a density of 40lb/sqft. Shrinkage: Radial: 5.5%, Tangential: 7.5%, Volumetric: 13.0%, T/R Ratio: 1.4

Pecan, hickory, and walnut are all in the same family but in walnut is a different genus. Pecan will work like hickory with a bit less weight. It will be prone to burning and tear out but if your tools are sharp it should make a nice if slightly heavy stock. The tangential shrinkage is a bit high so be sure to seal the stock well.

For reference: http://www.wood-database.com/pecan/

[texasnative46]

Texas by God,

Texas pecan tends to make just two sorts of firearms stocks: Really "Plain Jane" & "Downright PURTY". = A custom smith out from Ennis has made any number of GEORGIOUS custom rifles using pecan, that was cut on his family farm at Cumby, TX.
(I cannot afford his custom-made hunting rifles!!!!)

ADDENDA: I asked the smith about his Texas Premier Rifles & he finally said, "They start at just over 10K & go up from there." - Like I said, I cannot afford any.

Wishing that I had a BIG pecan that I could afford to cut down on our family farm but we SELL our pecans, when we get a good crop. = When I lived on the place years ago, I often sold 700-800 pounds of shelled pecans each year at Canton's First Monday.
(You wouldn't believe what Alaskans will pay by the pound for shelled pecans. = An old school chum of mine is a home missionary up there & always wants me to ship all the pecans that we are willing to ship him for resale.)

yours, tex

[ShooterAZ]

The cool factor of having a stock from a tree that came from your own place is priceless! I'd do it in a heartbeat.

[texasnative46]

ShooterAZ,

AGREED 100%.

yours, tex

[Texas by God]

On my .22 bolt action to shoot squirrels out of pecan trees...........
I'll take some pics of the blanks.
Tex, what caliper trunk are you seeking?

[MaryB]

Sand the blank and see what kind of figure it has. Do all 4 sides to see what would look best for the stock sides. If really plain well you can use it or not, I think the cool factor of saying this wood came from my farm is priceless if the rifle gets handed down!

I had a walnut end table made form a tree off my grandparents farm. Grandpa gave me ownership of the 12 walnut trees in the grove and when they matured the money went to my college fund and I got to keep some of the lumber. One of my nieces who was old enough to remember Grandpa Alby now has it and she has plans to pass it on to her kids and tell the story of how it came to be. Grandpa helped me build it, taught me how to use the lathe for the legs, and my niece was 4 or 5 so she helped with handing us stuff, adding glue etc. The table isn't fancy, I got some of the second grade lumber(top grade was way to pricey to keep) so the figure is so-so, the cool factor is the story behind it!

[samari46]

I have about 6 pecan trees on my property.One is the small hard shell and the tree is probably over 100yrs old. two I planted about 20 years ago different varieties but are large shell. The last it can be safely said one never knows wether it will bear nuts. Two by the house had really large nuts. I had one really huge pecan tree and that one was a monster. We had a hurricane come through and down she went. Was rotted away at the base. Asked around if anyone wanted the wood. No takers. Sure did smell nice while I was burning it. Spent the better part of a week with chainsaw chopping it up. Since the rotting was only at the base what was left was good wood. Called a lumber yard and was told I would have to cut it before bringing any wood in for appraisal. Yeah 60 years old no trailer and only me doing the work. Told them they could have it all just come down for a look see. Never showed up. Some of the limbs were easily over 36" thick. And me with a 20" bar on the saw. Had to make two cuts one on each side. Frank

[Texas by God]

Mary, that's a great story. Your neice adores that end table I'm sure.
Frank, everyone wants free wood unless they have to work for it!
Good, bad or ugly- here are the blanks after I rinsed them off. They have some lines and swirls but nothing that would pass for figure.
A retirement project perhaps. I have 2 more trees to bring down but recovering from shoulder surgery has put that WAY dowm the list.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180415/6301e261d9ec96afbc5ad55a2bad4e8a.jpg

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[Der Gebirgsjager]

Not bad at all! I think I see a couple of attractive blanks in there.

[sparky45]

Where you're at T by G , I'd of thought you'd search out some Mesquite.:razz:

[richhodg66]

I grew up in S.c. and between the two houses we lived in, there were a lot of big, mature pecan trees. Maybe six at the first house and the second one we moved into when I was a senior in high school had a back yard that was about an acre which was the last of a big orchard of them at one time, maybe 30 big mature trees. My folks sold the place about 18 years ago and I haven't been back. I kind of wish I had kept some wood from them now. We always had a lot of pecans. They don't seem to grow here like they do in the deep south.

[Texas by God]

Where you're at T by G , I'd of thought you'd search out some Mesquite.:razz:It seems like we have millions of them but big ones are rare. My second favorite cooking wood!

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[Der Gebirgsjager]

You need to borrow or acquire one of those stock patterns made out of clear plastic used to draw the rough out line of a stock, and move it about on those planks until you see something you like. Then draw around the pattern with a magic marker and start cutting.

I know this is about pecan, but I have some large white oak slabs as large or larger than the ones in your photo that except for being a lighter color look quite similar. Not a good wood for gunstocks that I'm aware of, but would make great coffee tables and such. If you don't want to make them into stock blanks, then there's another idea for you. I've also got
a stack of slabs from a maple burl suitable for making wall clocks, etc. Destroyed what had been a good chainsaw chain cutting through it, as it had some small rocks inside the wood the tree had grown around. I dedicated one of these slabs to making fancy contrasting grain and color fore end tips for stocks, and although I made several I've got half of that slab left over. Lots of tips in one chunk. More ideas for you.

[texasnative46]

Texas by God,

Fwiw, my cousin Robby has "limited out" on bushytails many times in less than 2 hours & sitting under the same "hicker-nut" tree.
I once asked him HOW he could consistently do that "slick trick" & he said, "It's easy. You just pick a likely looking tree, make yourself comfortable & then 'make a noise like a nut'."
(I must admit that I have a pair of cousins, who are BETTER SHOTS & BETTER HUNTERS than I ever was or ever will be.)

yours, tex

[ulav8r]

Ideally. a stock blank should be quartersawn wood with no sapwood or center core. To get a 7 inch wide blank would require a log diameter of 20 inches or more, depending on how thick the sapwood is. Have no idea what it would be on a pecan.

[bdicki]

Pay attention to the grain through the wrist as you layout the blank.