doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com English ?? walnut

I have a pet peeve which may not resonate with some of you. I am provoked to post about it as a result of reading an excellent article by SDH in a recent issue of, I think it was, Sports Afield in which Steve repeatedly rings the bells for the virtues of "English" walnut. He is of course writing about Juglans Regia ... and his praise is quite accurate.

But in my opinion there is nothing English about Juglans Regia and when I first learned, in the 1950s, that there was such a thing in the universe as a custom rifle, the expression did not exist. It was French or Circassian or Caucasian or European walnut, less frequently, Old World walnut. None of the great prewar makers whose works are so often the subject of this forum, knew of it as English walnut. The books on gunsmithing and the American Rifleman never used that terminology. I have the Rifleman back to its start in 1923 but frankly don't have the energy to search for the first use of "English", in any event, postwar, there was and has been an efflorescence of writing about guns in additional periodicals and books. My impression is that "English" began to be used in the 1970s. It is now almost universal ..... but it is a thoroughly inaccurate misnomer. Juglans Regia originated on the Continent and has been planted widely, but little if any of it actually comes to us from the United Kingdom. I cannot understand how the term got started and why astute gunmakers like Steve use it.

I think the term "English Walnut" may be much older than you believe. Howe refers to Juglan regia as English walnut in the Modern Gunsmith. I wonder if the most reliable early source was from English supply houses resulting in calling the wood "English'?

Jerry Liles

OOps,

Just dug out my copy of Greener's "The Gun and its Development". On page 270 he writes, "The material most generally in use for gun stocks is heart walnut (Juglans regia) ----- 'English' walnut is the trade term used to designate a finely-figured variety suitable for guns stocks. It seems paradoxical to state that it is chiefly imported." He does note that English grown wood was available but tended to lack color and was seldom available in quantity.

Jerry Liles

Mark, when I was at Trinidad in the middle '60s as a very young man, we referred to most Juglans Regia as French or Circassian especially if it had a darker tint. The Juglans Regia with a lighter color is what we called English at that time and it was not as commonly available at that time as it seems today. As a matter of fact at that time and place, the lighter 'English' was largely denigrated as being both weaker and less visually attractive than the darker 'French' or 'Circassian' of that time, and it was substantially cheaper when found. Not as cheap as Juglans Nigra (American Black Walnut) but not as dear as the redder darker 'French' or 'Circassian'. I remember buying one batch of 6 'Circassian, best quality' from Flaig's in 1967, all of it was the darker type with much marbling, fiddleback, crotch, etc. It was so dark that it didn't need any alkanet root or other red tint. I still have the last one of those blanks & am preparing to make a Mauser stock out of it. It looks like it's already been stained when I put it next to a couple of the much lighter 'English' blanks I just bought. An excellent example of this distinct color difference can often be found in factory Browning European Walnut stocks, some are almost yellow while others are quite a dark brown. And the lighter color is not sapwood, at least it's no sapwood I've ever seen.

It's my impression that the term English more-or-less gradually replaced the French and Circassian nomenclature, as the lighter-colored wood seems to have gradually replaced the darker color on most available blanks today. JMOFWIW.
Regards, Joe

I thought the term English Walnut refered to wood that comes from English Walnut trees (typicaly in California) that were past their prime and cut down for their lumber. I also vaguely recall reading something along the lines that English Walnut cuttings are often grafted onto Black Walnut saplings as a means to increase English Walnut production (the nuts, that is), again mainly in California. I've heard said wood denigrated for being too soft. Not so in my experience. Maybe I've been lucky.

Whatever the source, I personaly like the looks of the lighter colored "English Walnut". (I like cracking English Walnuts at Christmas-time too!)

WJL, should have checked Howe and Greener before shooting from the hip about the antiquity of the term "English". Maybe the Brits, imperialists to the core, stuck their label on the wood once it came in to London and Birmingham from Europe. But I am interested in what JDS notes about color variations.

mkbenenson,

I think you do have a valid point whatever Howe and Greener say. I remember often reading of French and Circasian walnut and really don't recall reading of English walnut until the 70's. In this case I wonder if the term didn't become popular until thin shelled walnut grown in the U.S. became commonly available. I believe (but I'm not certain) that the trees in the orchards are referred to in the nut trade as "English" and, therefore, so would the wood. Just a theory.

Jerry Liles

It's true that many of the 'English' walnut trees in California & Oregon are grafts of thin-shelled Juglans Regia shoots onto Black Walnut Juglans Nigra root stock. This is mentioned in nursery catalogs as being quite desirable for better nut production, and SDH in one of his books mentions encountering a grafted example in the butt of one of his custom stocks.
Regards, Joe

I believe there are some truths in all he theories mentioned thus far. I have another if you will permit me. Back when the bolt action rifle first came onto the scene the US was behind in it's appreciation of this new action and American gun companies were slow in adopting it into there offerings. The only place most peple could get rifle lenght blanks was from overseas and England was where alot of these blanks were shipping from (not grown there shipped from there). Hence the term English was born I believe and it may be mostly an American used term. I also Believe our California English ( named so I believe because it was like the wood we were getting from England but it was grown here) did not get much play early on as these trees were mostly to immature to harvest and their crops were to valuable. Juglans Regia is walnut but it is effected by the soil in which it is grow and hence we have many varieties. Austrailian. New Zealand, English, etc.
Actually Iran and Afganistan have large grove of walnuts as well and I believe Pakistan also does.
Just my take on it but when I was in gunsmthing school in the mid seventies we called it California English.

Michael J

MJ, I can't say that I agree with you there. Americans had been cutting 5 foot blanks for years to make long rifles. And it is no more difficult to saw a local tree into long blanks than short ones. I can't believe that Winchester couldn't get a blank out of Iowa to fit a bolt rifle.
Brent