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I'm amazed you found it 'light'. Of course, it varies with the area where it's grown, as in Eastern Hard Rock Maple or Western 'Red' maple. This piece is probably Western (BC) maple. It also varies a great deal in hardness. Some say the Western Maple is not suitable for rifle stock - they really should not repeat something they've heard but not checked out. My brother has built a number of longrifles, smoothbores & Hawken rifles with Western Maple and Eastern Maple as well. # 100 is coming up soon.

Western maple us usually better figured than Eastern maple, but of course, the full range of figure occures in both places.

Taylor, my brother just finished building a late period "S Hawken" caplock using apiece of Eastern maple - a 1/2 stocked rifle, of course. The finished rifle weights over 11 pounds with a tapered barrel. The stock blank, not much longer than needed, weighed 11 1/2 pounds. In 2 years of storage in his basement, controlled humidity, it neigher gained, nor lost any weight. It was the heaviest, hardest piece of maple Taylor has seen.

Maple, as a rule, is very hard, much harder than walnut and requires exceptionally sharp tooling.

His latest, a late Verner of around 1810 or so - not as hard a piece as the Hawken, but hard nonetheless and very dense -
The spelling and style of engraving on the patch box is identical to A Verner's spelling on the rifle Taylor used ofr reference. Obviously, some of the greatest makes of THE day, weren't good engravers. That is evident through the Eastern States - such 'jobs' were not farmed out to 'masters' as in Europe.

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Daryl

"a gun without hammers is like a Spaniel without ears" King George V

Edited by CptCurl (19/03/12 09:52 AM)

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