I am not a fan of "over the top" wood and this one, in my opinion, is exceptionally nice for a Repro without being "over the top".

An A1 Special should have better wood than this IMHO and if I was considering this as a purchase the wood would be a deterrent for me. It's a nice stock for a DHE.

That's not claro you're looking at my friend and it has no place on a DHE.

I have DHE's with nicer wood than that and they don't have Claro either.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder...

I like the dark grain, it's straight through the wrist and looks to be well matched on both sides. It would be nice to find an A1 with multiple forends.

Great wood for this gun, in my opinion. If fancier wood is required, buy a stick of figured American Black.

I like the gun. But it does have a bit understated wood for the grade IMO.

These 16ga barrels if perchased from CSM were a run from Merkel...not Kreghoff. I have a set of merkel barrels fitted to a DHE repro 20, while they are a great shooting set they do not have the same top rib engraving and the dolls head does not fill its spot in the frame properly. Still minor issues.....I have killed many wild Kansas rooster with them 16ga barrels...(-: I would like to own this A1 set but could not get a trade deal worked out. I have a very rare DHE repro 410/28 set PG-DT-SF that I offered up....Thanks all SXS ohio...

I don't know. My 3 barrel A1 set (also originally purchased from Galazan) is also 16/20/20 and my barrels are Krieghoff (clearly marked). They do have the same rib engraving as the 20 gauge barrels and fill the doll's head perfectly. They are also the same dimensions as the set for sale - 28" M/F.

I've looked at quite a few A-1 special repro's and most of them have wood that has less figure than a lot of the DHE's. With that said most of them probably have special qualities to the blank's which make them suited for an A-1 special. With the main quality being the proper grain type and density to allow for the 32 LPI fine checkering on the A-1 specials.

Maybe Brain could give us some insight on what he would look for in a blank if he were to do a 32 LPI checkering job. I imagine a highly figured blank wouldn't be one of them.