Chapter IV: Gun Stocks

Probably no feature of a shotgun, not even the finest engraving, is so beautiful or so ornamental as an elegant piece of highly finished walnut in the stock. Gunmakers grade their stocks as carefully as the weapons to which they are to be attached. Technically the various grades of wood are known as plain American walnut, fine American walnut, English walnut, selected English walnut, fine English walnut, French or Italian walnut, and Circassian walnut. Whether these are any more than technical terms I am not prepared to say. It seems unreasonable that there should not be any fine grained and figured walnut in America.

The imported stocks are bought roughly blocked out and in this shape are admitted duty free. The rough blocks vary in price from one to twenty dollars, while the finished article may cost anywhere from four to fifty dollars. I have seen plain stocks of American walnut, turned to shape, ready to be cut and fitted to the action, sell for fifty cents each.

The plain walnut is certainly what its name implies. These stocks are usually not built to order but are turned out in quantities for the retail dealer. Ordinarily they are made entirely by machinery after a fixed pattern from which the manufacturer refuses to vary. They have the appearance of being turned by machinery, soaked in oil by the thousand, and coated with varnish en masse. The varnish lasts and keeps the wood looking half way decent until the arm is sold and then it begins to wear off in patches. A finished stock of this kind could probably be turned out for a dollar.

Selected American walnut is a considerable improvement upon the plain. It is darker, better in grain, and is generally what the rifleman terms fancily finished. It is well seasoned, strong, and lasting. When thoroughly oiled, it will retain its handsome appearance through considerable hard use. Such stocks are sometimes made to order with necessarily some hand work, but the majority are machined out to a regular pattern and placed upon arms kept in stock.

Imported English walnut is a stock adopted by our best manufacturers for their knockabout or field guns. The quality of wood is sound with often a very good grain. The stocks of this grade are oil finished and hand polished to some extent, thus enabling them to withstand severe service. Many of the arms with English walnut stocks are made to order with hand checkering, etc. They probably cost finished from five to eight dollars and retail at from twelve to fifteen.

Fine or selected English walnut is the quality of wood that we find on guns costing from one to two hundred dollars. As a rule such stocks are made to order only, and of any length, shape, drop, or measurement that the purchaser desires. Much of the finishing is by hand, and they are filed, papered, oiled, and rubbed until the grain of wood shows handsomely. A rag and a bit of polishing will always bring out the beauty of these stocks even after years of service.

French or Italian walnut is generally very dark wood which is finished in its natural grain without being stained to color or discolor it. These stocks are hand finished by a long and careful process, very similar to that applied to Circassian walnut which will be described. Italian walnut stocks are made to order at a cost of from thirty-five to fifty dollars, and are to be found upon guns valued at two hundred dollars or more.

The finest selected Circassian walnut stocks are the pride of the gunbuilder’s heart. He goes over his best wood with the greatest care to find a piece which he can grade as the finest selected Circassian walnut. After turning a number of those he likes into shape he again culls them for the one with the choicest grain.

The wood of this is subject to a repeated process of wetting and drying to bring out the grain which is then papered down until it becomes as smooth as it is possible to make it. Oil is then applied and rubbed in again and again until the wood will hold no more. No varnishing follows and the result is a dull though beautiful oil finish. The amount of hand work that goes into the manufacture of one of these stocks is greater than that required to build an entire gun of the medium grades; in fact, the oiling and rubbing such a stock receives is apparently unlimited. The result justifies the means for no more elegant piece of wood can be found anywhere than an artistically finished gun stock.

The frame and grip woodcutting is not that of an artisan but an artist. Such stocks, and the remainder of the arm in keeping, rank in artistic quality with the paintings of a master of the brush--of the two, well, give me the gun. The majority of manufacturers will refuse to place these stocks upon any except weapons of the highest grade, no matter what the inducement.

FORE-END

The fore-end of a shotgun serves three purposes. It affords a hold for the forward hand which would otherwise come in contact with the hot barrel; it serves to bind the barrels to the frame at the joint; and it contains the mechanism of the ejector.

In the earlier makes of breechloading arms I have known the fore-ends to loosen and shake or even lose off, but this so rarely happens to-day, whatever the age or service of the gun, that little thought need be given to the fastening of the fore-end. In some American arms the Deely & Edge fore-end fastener is used. Others have adopted what is known as the snap-fore-end, a heavy straight spring which passes the point of greatest tension in clamping on and goes home with a snap. It maintains a continuous pressure against the joint and at that point would take up all wear automatically. A ball and socket fastening is also a good one.

When the fore-end needs to bear some of the strain of cocking the gun as in the Anson & Deely system or the Smith, it should be firmly fixed, but this has been so well accomplished by the manufacturers that it is hardly worth while for anybody to go into it except the student of gunbuilding.

THE SELF-EJECTOR

Self-ejectors are of such positive advantage to the sportsman afield that it is a matter of wonder any shotgun of good or medium grade should ever be made without them. It is very rare indeed for any gunner to shoot a single day without being placed at a disadvantage and missing shots or game should he lack ejecting locks.

A bevy of quail gets up in succession and the shooter works so rapidly in pulling out and replacing the empty shells that he becomes rattled and takes an impossible chance where he might have made an easy kill had the arm assisted him by throwing out the spent cases. Many of us have seen the wild ducks come stringing over the blind. Perhaps the first one is at long range and a miss is scored; then while the gunner is fumbling to get out his empty shells a bunch of mallards will fairly fan him as they go by his head. He tries a shot after it is too late and then the process is to be repeated again. The repeater and the automatic owe their popularity in a great measure to the fact that so many of our sporting double guns are built non-ejecting.

Possibly trapshooters have had something to do with the slow development of ejectors on American guns. He can fire at most not more than two successive shots and then has ample time to reload, so of course does not require an ejector. The young sportsman is very liable to follow the example of these veteran professionals, and since they have no ejectors neither does he wish any.

Old time gunners, too, who have become set in their ways, have done something toward retarding the popularity of this as well as of every other invention that did not make its appearance when they were of an impressionable age. They decry the ejector as being a complex piece of machinery and liable to break down, as making the gun harder to work, and so on.

The self-ejecting mechanism can be described as simply a miniature gun lock, placed in the fore-end and striking against the extractor stem in place of the primer. The pulling of the trigger of the real lock may be said to pull the trigger of the miniature lock also, when it is ready to act as soon as the arm is opened sufficiently. There is no more reason for this ejector lock breaking down than the one in the frame for they are made on similar principles and just as strong.

Ejectors are cocked by the extractor stem pushing against the ejector hammer as the barrels are going back into place. In one of the simplest and best forms with which I am acquainted there are five pieces, the striker, mainspring, sear, latch, and push rod. When the gun is closed the ejector hammer engages with the latch and remains at cock until the arm is discharged, when the pushrod drives out the latch and replaces it with a sear that trips as the barrels rise.

A high class English gun is similar in movement except that the true sear engages with the hammer of the ejector and holds it in position until the action of the main lock drives out a trip in the end of the frame which catches the sear and springs the lock as the barrels turn on the joint.

These arms have the correct mechanical principles for ejecting spent shells, and other makes will differ from them only in minor particulars. Some few guns are built with ejectors that exert a continual pressure against the extractor rod; the sear in this action is only driven into the notch of the ejector hammer when the barrel is fired, retaining the hammer at cock until tripped by the barrel as usual. This model works well enough but is wrong in that the barrels must be closed against the pressure of the ejector spring whether the arm has been fired or not.

A well liked European arm has ejectors that act as usual or may be locked back, whereupon the arm extracts its shells the same as a non-ejector gun.

In all self-ejecting weapons the cartridges are removed the usual distance in the ordinary way, that is by a pin in the frame pushing against the extractor as the barrels are dropped. It follows that should the ejector mechanism fail to work the shells could be extracted by hand exactly as in a gun without ejectors. However, ejectors of a reliable make do not fail to act.

The simpler the form of ejector of course the better, if it does its work without lost motion and without friction. I should be inclined to judge an ejector mechanism more by the strain it puts upon the gun and its owner than any other way. One gun works so smoothly that you are hardly aware it has ejector locks while another may keep you emphatically reminded.

Our ejectors are now being built with both flat and coil springs, and while both are behaving satisfactorily, a critical judge might be disposed to favor the coil, for the reason that it is best adapted to bearing a constant compression. In addition the striker of the coil spring with its direct push occupies less room than the flat with its hammer moving in the segment of a circle; this is a matter of importance in view of the necessarily limited space in the fore-end. Nearly all American guns use coil springs in the ejector even though the main locks have flat.