Chuck, a really spectacular piece of wood and a great project!! Glad it is coming along.

von Gruff;

Somewhere back in the archives is a thread I started about this very topic and IIRC. CZ's seem to have the grain flowing like that very commonly {my 9.3 shows a little more end grain at the back of the wrist than I like}. On CZ's, the grain seems to often run perpendicular to the recoil shoulders {max strength there} but then runs out at the wrist.

By contrast, for example, old HVA stocks seems purposefully and carefully laid out to angle the grain thru the wrist to provide maximum strength there tho that means the grain frequently runs at an angle to the recoil shoulder. {HVA's are know for splitting, but normally that occurs at the tang due to bedding problems}. Ruger rifles seem well laid, sort of "averaged" between the two. I have never seen a Ruger cross-grained at the wrist, but then, I've never seen a Ruger with truly spectacular wood tho I have seen some with nice "standard".

A look at Speed's Mauser book shows a variety of stocking up on Original Mausers that suggests some variation. On page 420 is a picture of a .416 Rigby-Mauser restocked by David Miller that shows a clearly crossgrained wrist with almost no flowthu to the butt.