Are Baseball Bat Woods Good For Rifle Wood?

L

Lee Enfield

New member
From what I've read, the consensus seems to be that English Walnut (Juglans regia) is the wood of choice for its properties across multiple criteria (Janka hardness, modulus of elasticity, etc.). However, as you may already know, English Walnut is becoming more and more scarce, and more and more expensive. I think I've read somewhere that a blank of premium quality English Walnut burl rated as at least a 4 out of 5 or higher will cost several hundred dollars to start.

Naturally, I started to get curious on alternatives. I know that there are wood laminates that may even be superior to English Walnut, given that laminates may be comprised of English Walnut sandwiching layers of different wood types, and it should be inherently more stable. There are also synthetic stock choices, too.

But, how about antique baseball bats? Baseball bats have high toughness, are hard, etc. I'm thinking of a nice old Louisville Slugger that may be rehabilitated as a foregrip (probably not for the butt end of a stock given the width requirement). I believe today's wooden baseball bats are primarily made of maple and ash.

Thanks in advance!
 
I toured the Louisville Slugger plant and modern bats fell into two categories: Ash and maple. Maple was lighter but broke easier. For gazillionaire professional Baseball players, ones who are paid essentially $24,000 per inning, they could fill a dumpster with broken maple bats each game and never notice the cost.

I would carefully examine any antique bat for collect ability before whittling it down. I toured the bat collection at the Louisville Slugger plant and based on what I saw, there are some bat collectors who would pay $$$ for some versions. Bats have changed over the last century and some old ones are very valuable.

I don't think there is enough wood, even in old vintage bats, to do much of anything with. I recommend going through wood pallets, sometimes I see eye popping wood from tropical countries on a wood pallet. Unfortunately for me, when I have tried to dismantle a wood pallet, most of the wood has been secured so firmly that it broke. But, I was able to create cherry wood spacers for one rifle butt.
 
a blank of premium quality English Walnut burl rated as at least a 4 out of 5 or higher will cost several hundred dollars to start
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More like several thousand to start.

Now, there is hard rock maple, American/CA walnut, Myrtlewood, and good old Turkish walnut that should be reasonable. Myrtlewood has nice figure to it
 
Many (if not most of) wooden baseball bats are made of ash. Ash is a wild tree, and as such will fall under sustainable harvest models, i.e. you can only harvest it as fast as you can grow it. There are a number of ash orchards around the country, but most still comes from wild trees. Because of this, there is a shortage of high quality ash. Ash is hard, dense, but not terribly flexible. For gun stocks, it is heavy, homogeously puke colored, and looks like hammered ugly when you sand it and stain it.

High quality walnut is light, dense, flexible, and, perhaps most importantly, cross-linked (so it does not split easily). Walnut has most of the qualities that will make it a premium wood for gun stocks. As far as cost, walnut can be expensive, but is not terribly so. I can buy a straight-grained pre-carved walnut stock for about what a good baseball bat costs anymore. Walnut and maple have the added advantage of being commercially grown wood, and as such are available in high quality and high quantities.

Gun stocks can be made of any grade of wood, but figured and grained wood is preferred for aesthetic reasons. World-wide markets for wood drive up the prices on premium figured woods, but not so much on straight-grained pieces. So, if you want nice wood, buy nice wood, but realize that there are almost 6.5 billion people on the planet competing with you for it.
 
I don't think there is enough wood, even in old vintage bats, to do much of anything with.
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But most certainly enough to make a real good set of wood grips for a revolver!

Imagine if you had one of Babe Ruth's broken bats.... and made into a set of Jordan style grips for a 5 screw N frame .44 Model 26 hand ejector.

Deaf
 
Maple is known to be a good and stable stock wood. When stained with aqua fortis, it gives the rich gold tiger stripe you see in older muzzle loading firearms. I don't know how much useable wood you'd get out of bats though, probably more suited to pistol grips and knife scales
 
QUOTE: "...Ash is hard, dense, but not terribly flexible. For gun stocks, it is heavy, homogeously puke colored, and looks like hammered ugly when you sand it and stain it..."

Ash wood may not look pretty but if you had a stock made from a bat used by, say, Pete Rose, wouldn't you be able to get more hits?
 
Slamfire nailed it,
That would have to be one HUGE baseball bat to whittle a rifle stock out of it.
 
"...don't think there is enough wood..." Hand gun grips, maybe, but certainly not for any long gun. And old wood will be very, very dry.
There's more than one flavour of maple too. Not all of it is suitable for stocks.
Ash is a wild tree that's currently being destroyed by the Emerald Ash Borer beetle. Thousands of perfectly good ash trees have been cut down to stop the bug's migration.
"...going through wood pallets..." Kind of astounding isn't it? You can tell which are hardwoods, not likely maple though(I think some might be oak. I just threw 'em around. No time for anything else.), by the weight. Good place to get practice wood for learning how to checker, etc. too.
 
I thought it would be neat to get an antique, beat up baseball bat and rehab it (low grade / condition, "non-collectible") - I think it would be doubly neat to have that old "Louisville Slugger" logo on the side of a rifle. :p:)

But, of course, as Nut 'n Fancy would put it, that would be a Second Kind of Cool (aesthetic / looks). For me, if it doesn't satisfy the First Kind of Cool (practical benefit / performance), too, it would be moot, as I want both Kinds of Cool. Reading the comments above, I'm not entirely sure that old baseball bat woods would perform satisfactorily. That said, maybe making a wood laminate using an old bat as the outer layer would work.
 
Unfortunately for me, when I have tried to dismantle a wood pallet, most of the wood has been secured so firmly that it broke.
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There really is some amazing pallet wood out there. I find it is best to just cut it with a reciprocating saw if you have one or a circular saw if not. There are some tools by Vestil and Duckbill that seem to work well.
https://www.amazon.com/Vestil-SKB-7-Pallet-Buster-Diameter/dp/B0052PTFRC

Maple is known to be a good and stable stock wood. When stained with aqua fortis, it gives the rich gold tiger stripe you see in older muzzle loading firearms.
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I believe you have to start with curly maple and aqua fortis will bring out the figure. If it is straight grained maple it will not have much effect though. I have not used this finishing process though. Might be able to get a short-pull two piece stock on a petite 22lr out of two bats. Probably have some odd shape in the stock b/c the stock would be insufficient to shape correctly, but that might not be a bad thing.
YOu can also laminate pieces from multiple bats together.

Nice burl pen blanks a $5-10. As the piece gets larger the price goes up exponentially. I have seen many nice stocks that have no apparent burl.

It also depends what rifle you are making a stock for though. What kind of wood can you make a 22lr stock out of safely? Probably almost anything. If bedded, balsa might even work.
 
I have seen many nice stocks that have no apparent burl.
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That is because burl is weak. I made a presentation rifle stock several years ago out of a piece of burl, and it parted cleanly at the wrist when stressed. No grain in burl, you know.
 
I don't know what your objective is. Are you worried about strength? In Europe, when supplies of wood ran low during the wars, beech was pretty much the choice of wood to replace walnut. Hard to work with and not nearly as stable as some other woods, but very strong. I have never been impressed with walnut for strength. As you cruise gun shows, check out all the replaced or cracked gunstocks on rifles that had grenade launcher attachments. It does not suffer oil or moisture well either.
 
No grain in burl, you know.
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There is grain, but it is twisted. You can stabilize with various products which should increase strength.
Burl wood was often used for clubs due to its multi-directional strength and density. The strength is not the same as straight grain though and may not match the compressive strength of straight grain. It also will not flex like straight grain. It is much more rigid.
I've not looked into its properties with regards to gunstocks before.

One of my Winter projects is shaping and chip carving a woodlands/ball club.
 
Howdy

A couple of things. First off, gun stocks made in the USA are not made of English Walnut, they are American Black Walnut. Juglans nigra. English Walnut (Juglans regia) is also known as Persian Walnut. English Walnut is a European species. American Black Walnut is a native North American tree.

As a former professional woodworker, I used to love to work with White Ash. Ash has about the same strength as Oak, but it is 10% lighter in weight. Ash has a very pronounced grain, and the grain tends to be stringy. Ash is indeed flexible, that is why it is used for baseball bats. It will give when other woods might shatter. Ash is also used for the ribs of lapstrake boats because it takes a bend well when steamed.

Regarding making a gunstock of Ash, I can't imagine why you would want to do that. If it was me, I would go with tiger striped Maple.
 
Many (if not most of) wooden baseball bats are made of ash. Ash is a wild tree, and as such will fall under sustainable harvest models, i.e. you can only harvest it as fast as you can grow it. There are a number of ash orchards around the country, but most still comes from wild trees. Because of this, there is a shortage of high quality ash. Ash is hard, dense, but not terribly flexible. For gun stocks, it is heavy, homogeously puke colored, and looks like hammered ugly when you sand it and stain it.
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Ash can look stunning if properly finished but it takes some advanced technique to be sure.
 
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