Parker Gun letter question

[John Gardner]

Nice guns Jeremy. I like the Damascus G's and you've sort of got a two-in-one with those barrels. Neat! The wood is great. As Bruce said, a lot of G's have nice wood and your's seems very, very, nice.

Anybody got any ideas why G's can come with such great wood? It's like the wood used skips over a grade or two or three on some of these G guns.

[Bindlestiff]

Originally Posted by John Gardner

Anybody got any ideas why G's can come with such great wood? It's like the wood used skips over a grade or two or three on some of these G guns.

I have noted that the GH guns that I took a close look at had stocks made of wood that showed better on one side than the other. I suspect that the wood wasn't good enough for use on higher grade guns because of this inconsistency but was too nice for lower grades. GH guns where a transition from low to high grade and would accept these irregular wood grains. Thus, some very nice wood ended up on GH guns, even if one side was different from the other.

[Scott Fox]

Jeremy, any chance you could post more photos of the GH wood? Thanks

[Jeremy Pinsly]

I'll post some more pics of the wood tonight.

[Bill Murphy]

Greg is right. If PB had any American Walnut (juglans nigra) with obvious figure, the G Grade guns were the highest grade they could use it on. It was "Put it on a G Grade or burn it in the stove."

[Wild Skies]

Originally Posted by John Gardner

Anybody got any ideas why G's can come with such great wood? It's like the wood used skips over a grade or two or three on some of these G guns.

I always thought the reason you frequently see higher figured wood used on GH guns was because Parker Bros. utilized less costly American Black Walnut for them, whereas in the ascending grades Parker Bros. utilized higher cost European thin shell Walnut for their stock wood. Grade-for-grade American Black Walnut is, by nature, more highly figured than European thin shell Walnut.