Should you choose maple as your wood when preparing your own wood stock? I believe this comes down to your comfort and experience when working with different types of wood. As I am fairly new to custom woodworking, I would probably use maple as my wood of choice. This is simply because it is easier to work with than other wood types. Having said this, it is still important to check the piece I am starting with because a good wood for gunstocks needs to meet certain criteria to be considered usable.
Wood for gunstocks should be light in weight, dense with close together grains to resist
moisture, straight grained in the grip area and the forend in one piece stocks and must be cut from the main trunk and not some kind of large branch. Now that these factors have been taken into consideration, other things like durability may sway your decision when choosing a wood type for your stock. For example, Bastogne Walnut is considerably strong and firm equal to some of the best English or French walnut on the market.
You may also consider a Turkish walnut because it is incredibly dense, the straight grain
prevents warping, and this type of wood checkers well. Of course, if you choose the prized dark wood Turkish walnut for the whole stock it will drastically increase the weight of your final build because the weight per cubic foot can range between 40-45lbs. Though most maple wood is not as dense, durable or pretty as some of the other woods we discussed, I believe it is a good starting point for me and most others with little woodworking.
