Blackjack Oak ?

[Secesh]

Black Jack Oak is a bit like Mesquite. Makes a really hot fire, great coals and very good in the smokehouse. We use the bark for seasoning our steel traps.

 

[oldwood]

Last week , four of us guys made five Pa. Black oak trees , (Chestnut oak) into nice fire wood for deer camp. It's heavy , burns hot and long , but not a gunstock wood. Only m/l rifle I've ever seen , is in the Getttsburg National Battlefield Gun Museum. It is a short barrel Jaeger rifle , built for right hand , and left hand user , cheek Piece on both sides of the stock. Stock looks like red oak , or stained white oak. Looks heavy , but is on display , and can't be handled.

 

[The Appalachian]

I'm pretty sure COTNTOP nailed it with his comment......

 

[smokepolehall]

I almost fell off my chair laughing when I first saw your question. I once lived on a property that had a lot of blackjack oak. I cut it for firewood and to make room for other trees. IMHO, lousy choice for any kind of gunstock. The grain is twisty and difficult to split. It has a lot of branches making selection of a piece difficult for a gunstock. A strange characteristic is the branch knots go all the way through the tree and are extremely hard and often purple in color. I hate these trees. In the winter, without leaves the branches are crooked and remind me of witches hands reaching out for victims. But, if you have unlimited time and patience try it for a stock. Let us know what happens.

I have thickets of this stuff, yes burns hot in the stove for sure. Thank y'all for the info n help. I not try to make a stock from it.

 

[Cvkotvkse]

I have thickets of this stuff, yes burns hot in the stove for sure. Thank y'all for the info n help. I not try to make a stock from it.

The only things I ever heard of our elders using it for was 1. firewood, and 2. the ashes from such a fire are some of the best for mixing with water to make the dehairing solution to turn deerhides into rawhide. They work GREAT for this...

 

[Cvkotvkse]

Black Jack was put here for cooking pigs.

Oak built good warships. Have read of cannon balls bouncing off of British men of war. "Hearts of Oak" is the hymn of the British navy.

The U.S.S. Constitution was built of live oak; its impervousness to cannonballs led to its nickname,
"Ol' Ironsides."

 

[COTNTOP]

Types of Oak is also used to floor heavy equipment trailers.

 

[Warren whitley]

Richard Miller at gun makers hall at NMLRA built a rifle out of white oak and he said he would never do it again, it was so hard he like to have never got it carved.

 

[Col. Batguano]

There are over 30 different species of oak in the US. Some are better than others for certain things. (White oak is preferred for gun carriages.)
From what I've seen at the hardwood dealers they only differentiate them in to white oak and red oak, and I'm not experienced enough to know the difference between all the different species when looking at a board in a pile.

As was said earlier, the fact that you don't see a lot of (historical or contemporary) guns stocked in oak should tell you something right there.