Pro Sport Walnut Stock ?

[Tullja]

Reading the thread below got me wondering- again. I would like to know the origin of the walnut used on the Air Arms springers. I posed this question to Air Arms last summer. They told me the name of the stockmaker, although I've since forgotten. A well known company in Italy. I e-mailed the stockmaker, but no reply. Does anyone know? Italian walnut, French walnut, or maybe English walnut ?
Take care, Scott

[Rapidnick]

English walnut-no chance!! I would put my money on it being American walnut which whilst being very attractive is nowhere near as expensive as European walnut.

[uk litehammer]

I think it could be made by Minelli. (Italian walnut).

[Tullja]

I think it could be made by Minelli. (Italian walnut).

I'm certain your correct. Looking at this walnut, on my Pro Sport and TX200, I don't think it is American. There are orange-ish streaks and in the TX stock what looks like vericose veins or spider webs. Really unusual, but at the same time really nice.
Take care, Scott

[Rapidnick]

I bow to other member's knowledge on this but I must admit to being surprised that on air rifle stocks anything other than American walnut is used in general anyway. Perhaps Air Arms push the boat out on stocks for export rifles.
I would've thought that English walnut is out of the question on price grounds as the good stuff goes for high end shotgun furniture.
Also bear in mind that the fact that the MAKER is Italian doesn't mean that Italian walnut is used.

[lionel]

Perhaps it's from Turkey? You can get some very nice, well-priced walnut there. I believe the RWS Excalibre's stock was Turkish and that was astonishingly good.

[I. J.]

Whichever walnut they used they saved the best for the left handers.

ATB
Ian

[Amac]

I reckon we deserve it Ian as we always have to pay a premium when buying new anyway. That is certainly a nice bit of wood.
Andy

[Rapidnick]

Whichever walnut they used they saved the best for the left handers.

ATB
Ian

Wow that is VERY nice!! I've owned a 400 with a Gary Cane 'Tawnado' stock but it wasn't as good as that. Its all in the finishing isn't it?

[I. J.]

I reckon we deserve it Ian as we always have to pay a premium when buying new anyway. That is certainly a nice bit of wood.
Andy

I think the manufacturers save the best bits of wood to make l/h stocks for the better shooters.

Wow that is VERY nice!! I've owned a 400 with a Gary Cane 'Tawnado' stock but it wasn't as good as that. Its all in the finishing isn't it?

You mean like l/h Tawnado

ATB
Ian

[daystateshooter]

aa stocks are made by minelli

[Gungeek]

Another example; I took my Beretta semi-auto to have the stock modified, the 'old boy' (in his late 70's, been around gun stocks all his life) stock-maker reckoned it was Turkish Walnut. So an Italian gun maker using Turkish Walnut (or whatever is cheapest for a non-oil finished, lacquered or polyurethane coated stock, in this case). Regards ... Geek

[Tullja]

I can see the point. I see that Custom Stocks, in the U.K., use American walnut for thier stocks. However, the wood in my two examples of AA rifles doesn't even look like any thing native to the USA. Could be wrong, it's happened before. This walnut on my AA rifles looks too good to be American walnut.
Thanks for all the input. I'll try to e-mail Minelli once more.
Take care, Scott

[Arthur John Smithsplease]

Many of the walnut stocks on the TX200s I've seen aren't as attractive as some of the beech ones.

If walnut has no figuring it isn't particularly nice to look at. And straight grained walnut actually looks awful to me.

When you order a walnut stock and then go to collect it, you've really no idea what it's going to look like, and whether it will be worth the extra money.

I had two walnut stocked TXs. Both were pretty drab.

[I. J.]

Some of the stocks on sale today were only seedlings when this thread was started.

ATB
Ian
(Who still has the l/h ProSport and Tawnado stocked guns )