Concerning the stock wood, Clay Smith appears to be speculating when he says,
All of the originals I have seen were stocked in a light colored hardwood including beech and maple and stained. Large quantities of wood were exported to Europe from America during the 18th century since good hardwoods were becoming scarce in Europe. To be more correct, this gun should be stocked in plain beech or maple but walnut is available as well.
He doesn't cite a source but rather refers to personal observation which reminds me of the parable of the blind men and an elephant. Just how many originals has he seen?
In the book,
The French Trade Gun in North America by Kevin Gladysz, he describes three surviving
fusil de chasse guns in three different museum collections in detail. He states all three have walnut stocks.
I agree that hardwoods were exported from North America to Europe, but question the economics of transporting wood across the Atlantic to be used to make inexpensive trade guns to be transported back across the Atlantic for the Indian trade.
I have seen pictures of high end European made guns with fancy curled maple stocks, so guns were made in Europe with maple stocks, but these were made for nobles and wealthy land owners where cost was less important.
I agree that beech was used to stock some trade guns. I don't have a reference for examples in French guns, but S. James Gooding in
Trade Guns of the Hudson's Bay Company 1670-1970 states,
Other than shape, wood and stock finish are the only other features to be considered. In 1717, the secretary gave an order to Mr. Hawkens "the Proof Master" for, among other things, "70 Gunstocks Sound and of a Dark Colour at 3s per stock." In 1769, the Governor and Committee wrote Thos. Hopkins and council at Albany Fort "We have ordered as many of the guns to be white stocked as we could procure." The 1717 stock "of dark colour" would have been of walnut while the white stocks would have been beech, both woods which were commonly used by the Ordnance Department at the time for military arms.
The price paid for trade guns by the Hudson's Bay Company were close to the price the military paid for muskets. I think this was the same for French guns.
I have several books that show pictures of French and English trade guns stock in maple, but the authors are convinced that these guns were restocked in North America.
Of course, the walnut used on the trade guns would have been European walnut and not American black walnut.
Concerning the question of the drop at the butt, the only source that gave detail measurements on a
fusil de chasse is
For Trade and Treaty by Ryan R. Gale. Gale's sample is described with a drop at heel of 2.9".
I have one of The Rifle Shoppe's Saint-Etienne
fusil de chasse parts set. Their stock has a drop of about 3" at the heel.
I suspect there was some variation in actual measurements considering that the
fusil de chasse was made and imported over a long period of time from different gun makers in different areas of France, the bulk coming from Tulle and Saint-Etienne. In fact, the term as used in period documents may have been used for a general type of hunting gun and not a specific pattern of gun. The pattern that we call the
fusil de chasse today may have been a late pattern shipped to New France in the last decades of French possession.
