Red Elm for gunstock?

[Only Round]

I've got a nice 2 1/2" piece of red elm that I could easily make 2 fullstocks- rather plain grained. For my next project I have all the parts for a Tennessee/Southern Mountain rifle so it would seem to be a good fit. I seem to remember an article in Muzzleloader/Muzzle Blasts (?) that compared various attributes of gunstock wood and I believe the author stated that elm should make an acceptable stock but that he wasn't aware of it being used much. Has anyone out there used it before or have reasons why it shouldn't be used?

 

I have used , or should say tried to use elm in cabinets and it is a sliverey as hemlock.
When dried in a liln it is brittle.
To make a stock out of it IMO would be a waste of time and effort.
It makes wonderful fire kindeling. Thats what 500 board feet of it I had went for.

 

[kansas_volunteer]

I've seen some beautiful things made of "plain" elm. The secret seems to be keeping tools razor sharp. Power tools probably will work it better than hand tools. It is a ring porous wood and apt to splinter, as any ring porous wood would, say, compared to diffuse porous wood like maple. I've had small problems with splintering on the European Walnut of my Lyman GPR kit. Wood splinters. Elm doesn't like to come apart, it doesn't split cleanly, as ash does, thus the need for razor sharp tools. The red colored elm is supposed to work better than the white elms, like the common Siberian Elm and others of that sort, which are mostly sapwood, or so I've been told by a wood worker. Red elm will make very good bows. It steam bends pretty well. My first experience steam bending wood was with a piece of young red elm for a bow. It tends to clog-up rasps pretty fast.

 

[buttonbuck]

martin makes bow limbs out of red elm. these are laminated bows not self bows of a solid piece of wood

 

[Wehrmacht]

Ditto on Woodhick's and KansasV's comments. The lumber industry is kinda so-so on all elm species, and over the years I have never had requests from the Industry for special efforts in procurement as I have for a number of other hardwood species.Ash,Walnut,Maples.....far superior.

 

[kansas_volunteer]

While there are woods considered superior to elm for gunstocks, there's no way to tell what sort of stock red elm would make without just doing it. If it turns out nice, and doesn't frustrate the hell out of the maker, then it could be said it is a pretty good wood. If it goes the other way, it could be called a good wood for practice.

You'll never know the result without giving it a go.

 

[Mike Brooks]

The Swedish were making elm Mauser stocks. I've seen some, looks good to me.

 

[Stophel]

I know Red elm is prized for bowstaves...if you can find it. I've seen photos of an English gun stocked in elm, and several Swedish guns in elm. Not all elms are created equal, though, and I don't know which ones are considered best. "Rock elm" used to be the wood of choice for things like wagon wheel spokes, as it is hard, tough, and next to impossible to split. I remember there used to be a pretty good sized real American Slippery Elm tree in the woods behind my house, but it, like the rest of the woods, is no more.

The biggest problem with elm is that there just ain't much of it. The elm disease has wiped out massive numbers of elm trees in America. There will always be American elm trees here and there (just like with chestnut), but sooner or later, the disease will probably get them and kill them off.