Homer and 93x64,

Friends, you are getting your drops and cast off mixed up. Have another look and you will see the wood has bent to the right, it has not bent down. The images showing the bend are the top view, looking down at the top edge of the blank.

So you could say it has natural cast off, but of course if I ever use it I would not be cutting the stock out at the very rear end of this blank. You can see a stock outline drawn on the sides but if I work on it I would most likely cut the butt out a bit further forward on the blank.

There are various build procedures I would use on this blank to get the stock I want out of it, which most likely would be a single shot rifle with extra barrels, the extra barrels to allow me to use the extra perfectly matched wood available for extra forends, to make the rifle a very nice showpiece project.

It has a large flaw in the middle of the blank, indicated by the thick black lines on the sides, so it won’t be used for a long one piece stock.

The bend is typical for the grain flow you see in the butt of this blank. I had a general idea of it but another member here with a lot of wood cutting experience very kindly sent me a much better evaluation of it yesterday.

The bend doesn’t concern me at all. I’m lucky the wood cutter didn’t try clamping down this blank or the slab it came from, to keep it straight while it initially cured. That would have resulted in too much stress getting locked up in the blank, and it would have released when the blank was shaped into a stock. Instead the wood has bent naturally, and has been curing a long time, since approximately early 1995, so I don’t expect any trouble with it when use it.

Regards,
Gabe