The Types of Walnut for Gunstocks: A Complete Look

If you’ve spent any amount of time looking at stock blanks, you will know that there is no such thing as “just walnut.” French, English, Black, Bastogne, Turkish, Italian, and Claro are all names you will see pop up. So what’s the difference? What is Claro Walnut? Is there a difference between Turkish and Circassian?

Four species of walnut are used regularly for gunstocks; Black, English, Claro, and Bastogne. All of the other names you hear fall under one of those four species.

Wood has been used to stock firearms since the beginning. Hardwoods have prevailed over softwoods, lasting centuries when taken care of properly. Countless types of wood have been utilized over the years, but walnut has come out on top time and time again.

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Wood Differences

Wood is composed of many fibers of cellulose. These fibers define the type of wood and its characteristics. Their alignment, density, and color all play into how tightly they are packed together. All of these elements are affected by the soil in the region, the growing season, and the amount of annual moisture.

Choosing the Best Gunstock Blank for the Job

A good rule of thumb is that the harder a tree has to grow, the better wood it develops. This is greatly affected by less fertile soil, colder climates, and rocky soil. This is not to say that a tree grown in all three is ideal, but one with one or two features tends to produce a better product for gunstocks.

Scientific Comparison

Categorizing these different types of wood using their scientific names is easiest. Black walnut is all by itself under the name Juglans Nigra. Claro carries the name Juglans hindsii. Bastogne is Juglans x paradox. It gets a little more complicated when you get into English Walnut. Classified as Juglans regia, English is a thin-shelled walnut covering French, Spanish, Italian, Australian, and Circassian or Turkish walnuts. You can see the similarities when looking at the weight in the charts below.

Black Walnut

Scientific Name: Juglans nigra

Found in North America, Black Walnut is the most popular wood for a gunstock on the continent. It has been used for centuries to stock everything from military rifles to flintlocks. The coloring is less rich than its European cousins, often without the heavy contrast in grains that you see in other types. When an oil finish is applied, a beautiful deep-brown color is revealed.

Black walnut is solid when the grain is running in the right direction and is one of my favorite woods to work with. It is relatively coarse-grained, strong, and light in weight compared to some other stock woods. Due to its grain structure, I rarely go higher than 20 Lines per inch(LPI) when checkering. It is one of the more affordable stock blanks and is perfect for a bolt-action hunting rifle.

English Walnut

Scientific Name: Juglans regia

A highly regarded wood, English is native to the northern hemispheres. It has traditionally been used on the finest European rifles and shotguns and is held in high regard in the United States. The coloring varies wildly from very light colors to extremely dark, largely dependent on the region and soil it grew in. It is known for its high contrast in coloring in the grain and beautiful marbling and mineral streaks.

English walnut is also known for its strength and workability. It can handle the heaviest of recoiling rifles and is excellent to work with if your chisels are sharp. It can be a very dense wood, sometimes leaving you with very little grain to fill when finishing. English will usually take a lot of the finer checkering patterns and hold the diamonds well. I think it is hard to beat a finely figured piece of English Walnut. If I could have every gun in my safe stocked with it, I would.

Australian Walnut is English walnut grown “Down Under.” While I have no experience working with Australian, Evan Koch of Minnesota claims that his piece was noticeably tougher than other types of wood he’s worked with. The coloring speaks for itself in the below picture of the Remington 40x Evan stocked using it.

French Walnut

Another prevalent wood for stockmakers is French walnut. This wood can sometimes be confused with English as the qualities are very similar. It is the same type of wood scientifically but identified differently because the soil in the region it comes from brings out different qualities. French will sometimes have an orangish tint unfinished and will finish lighter than English. The rifle below was finished with a straight oil finish without using stains or coloring agents.

Like English, French is a solid wood choice for gunstocks and is suitable for large-caliber rifles. Although not all French is grown in France, Cali’Co Hardwoods sells nice French walnut blanks that have been growing in California for 200 years now. With the tight grain structure, finer checkering can be achieved. I struggle to pass up on a nice piece of French Walnut.

Spanish Walnut is nearly indistinguishable from French, and many of the characteristics are the same.

Circassian or Turkish Walnut

Circassian and Turkish walnut are the same and are stunning when used on a rifle or shotgun. It is very similar to French and English in its characteristics but tends to have more marbling and figure. Once again, it is scientifically the same as English or Julias Regia. It tends to have a lighter background color with heavy contrast in the black and dark grey streaks. The higher the grade of wood you go with, the harder it will be to get an excellent straight-flowing grain through the wrist of the stock, just something to keep in mind when shopping for a good piece of Turkish walnut.

This type of walnut is tough, durable, and very workable, making it even better. Turkish walnut checkers very similar to French walnut, being able to achieve fine patterns with higher lines per inch than black walnut. So what’s the downside to Turkish walnut? It’s expensive as hell! For a good reason, though.

Italian walnut is very similar to Turkish, and much of the information here can be applied to it.

California or Claro Walnut

Scientific Name: Juglans hindsii

Claro Walnut is one of the most beautiful types of wood used for gunstocks. The colors are unmatched, in my opinion, with many yellows, reds, oranges, and browns with black streaking. On top of that, this wood is often found with highly figured feather crotch.

The origins of Claro walnut seem to be relatively unknown; the wood database treats it as its own native species. In Monty Kennedy’s book Checkering and Carving of Gunstocks, he states that Claro is a cross between English and Black Walnut. I have always heard this, but this is the only place I can find it in writing. Cali’co hardwood makes a good argument for it being its own species that originated somewhere in either Turkey or Greece. Either way, almost all of the Claro walnut found today comes from the west coast of the United States.

“Claro is the crazy hot girlfriend, irresistible to look at and hold, but potentially dangerous to commit to.” -Evan Koch, Stockmaker in Minnesota.

There is a downside to Claro.

It can be a complete pain to work with. I have stocked close to 70 rifles using Claro Walnut and seldom enjoy it. It chips out easily during inletting and is easy to turn “wavy” when using a scraper. This waviness is caused by hard and soft spots in the grain, causing the scraper to dig deeper in on every other grain. This can be alleviated by angling your scraper and taking off as little as possible. Care needs to be taken around the edges of the inletting as they are easily damaged or chipped off.

It is relatively painless to shape; however, be conservative using your rasps during this process. The teeth on the rasp seem to dig into Claro deeper than other woods. Filling the wood pores during the finishing process can be painful as the grain is very open. Lastly, checkering can be downright miserable. Kennedy claims it is because the tree is irrigated and grown too fast, making it soft.

With all of that being said, that is the price you pay for having arguably the most beautiful wood out there. Due to its relative softness, I wouldn’t use it for heavy recoiling rifles without cross bolts. However, it is not all doom and gloom, especially for the end-user. It is painful for the stockmaker not to affect the customer’s decision!

Bastogne Walnut

Scientific Name: Juglans x paradox

Bastogne Walnut is a cross between Claro and English walnut and has the benefits of both. It is a very dense and hard piece of wood. It has a golden yellow and brown color unfinished and is unique in that its sapwood is nearly indistinguishable from the heartwood. The sapwood has a slightly grey color that is easily matched to the rest of the stock. The grain tends to be very straight and works similarly to black walnut.

The origins of Bastogne walnut are fascinating in that it is a relatively new type of tree that was developed during an experiment in the 1890s with cross-pollination. The trees grew faster than their parent species and were harder and better suited for lumber. According to the wood database, the name “Bastogne” is purely a marketing term.

Due to its strength, Bastogne Walnut is suitable for the largest calibers out there. It is great to work with and checkers well. The biggest downside to this type of wood is its weight. It is heavy. Plain and simple. Not the ideal choice for a lightweight mountain rifle build.

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Consider the Weight

All of the woods listed above can be classified as a walnut. However, they have so many different characteristics they should be looked at individually. For example, one of the characteristics that are often scrutinized is weight. Maybe you are building a lightweight sheep rifle that you count ounces on—or working on a shoulder bruiser headed for Africa that might benefit from a heavier, more robust piece of wood.

Wood Type	Average Dried Weight
Black Walnut	38 lbs sq/ft
English Walnut	40 lbs sq/ft
French Walnut	40 lbs sq/ft
Bastogne Walnut	46 lbs sq/ft
Turkish Walnut	40 lbs sq/ft
Claro Walnut	40 lbs sq/ft

Choosing the Right Walnut blank

Armed with all of the above knowledge, this should help you decide on what type of wood you would like to use for a build. Regardless of everything that has been said, grain flow is everything. The most beautiful piece of walnut is worth nothing if the grain goes in the wrong direction. All of the listed woods work well for gunstocks if adequately handled.

If you’ve made it this far, you may enjoy my article on Choosing the Right Stock Blank. In that article, I cover size, layout, sapwood, slab-sawn vs. quarter sawn, grading a gunstock, and drying it properly.

Please don’t get caught up on all of the different types of walnut; find one that is appealing to you, has the proper grain flow, and go with it!