First, that gun is absolutely beautiful. If I shot it, it would be with light loads. I don't imagine that a gun with that amount of originally finish would be shot a lot anyway. I wouldn't if I owned it. Not because of the burl in the wrist but because I wouldn't want to diminish the condition of that gun. It is superb.

But all of the good stock makers make sure that the grain is straight going through the wrist. In fact, if you look at the pictures of the repro wood shown on this thread, you will see burl in the butt but straight through the wrist. This is the way Parker did it as well as all the other makers. Once and a while, you'll see cross grain in the grip, but its rare. The fact that this gun has it doesn't diminish the gun one iota. It is a wonderful gun anyone of us would love to own.

I just re-read the posts and saw that the gun was restocked. In that case, if I was going to hunt with it, I would bore a hole through the grip lengthwise from the head of the stock and install a long bolt surrounded by acraglas. Absolutely beautiful wood.

I had to do this with a beautiful civil war muzzleloader that was presented to a general by the state of Maine. Unfortunately, when I bought the gun it was badly cracked through the wrist in multiple places. I fixed it with the long bolt method and re-checkered over the cracks. It was a beautiful piece of wood but the burl ran right through the grip. You'd have to look very closely and know where the cracks were to see them now.

Not wood that is one a gun, but someday will be.

Last week I had the opportunity to buy 42 high quality stock blanks from the estate of a since passed gunsmith that was a friend of a friend of my family. He passed 5 years ago and was a life long practicing general gunsmith. Primarily working on and building custom rifles.

In the lot was Circassian (english, turkish, french), Bastogne, Claro and American. All of it is very old. He had everything dated, not sure if they were cut dates or purchase dates, but the oldest date is 1959 and the newest is 1973!

Now I just need to find room to store it all. On top of the nearly 150 blanks that I already had on hand.

As an aside... there was about 20 blanks of very nice Myrtle that I left behind since I do not work with it, so if anyone may know an interested party... let me know.

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Nice find Brian. Below is a picture I took from a site about walnut tree processing for gunstocks. It clearly shows how stocks should be cut with straight grain through the grip.

My Parker reproduction
 

This is my first reproduction, early 28 gauge.
26” English stock, single trigger. I look foreword to chasing grouse and woodcock this fall. I shot some preserve birds this winter with it and I believe it will make a fine grouse gun.

Great curl!

Brian, you have some knockout pieces there! Wow

Posted this before in another thread, but this is from my reproduction that Brian Dudley completely redid.

Some people have ask about the set of 30" barrels for a Repro. Here is the wood on the gun. It has 30" and 28" barrels and is a steel shot special. 28" barrels of course have IC & mod chokes. The 30" barrels have Briley thin wall choke tubes. I'm not sure if this was an option at the time but the only other 30" set that I personally know of also has the Briley thin walls. Neat thing about this gun is it comes with both splinter and beavertail forend and they are interchangeable for either barrel. Those 30" barrels really swing well.

https://i.imgur.com/eBCIVsq.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/6GlALh5.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/WzQa27e.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/tEhGvMC.jpg

Here is my other 12 gauge which is also a two barrel set 26" Q1 & Q2 and 28" IC & Mod. This gun was redone by Mr. Bachelder and I love the case colors.

https://i.imgur.com/hbiCYQB.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/X0Rpquo.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/WKxnUJ3.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/x6AsRXw.jpg