Winchester came to the Midwest annually and cut boxcars of walnut from Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma. They could make whatever they needed. I am sure most rifle builders did likewise.
I think it is a mistake to assume that most of these early makers were limited by materials in that way. They didn't subcontract wood from suppliers they found elsewhere, they cut it themselves. I may be wrong about this, but so are the stories that I learned.
Long rifles were every sort of wood imaginable. I have a nice one that is ash I think. And are not most early 20th century American military rifles of one piece and mostly walnut? Dogleg rifles and military rifles are not my cuppa', but I just can't imagine that US makers had to get their wood from England because they couldn't buy a blank or cut their own locally.
Whatever the source of the name and the nationality of the soil on which it grew, what we call English today is mighty fine stuff. Strangely however, I almost never ever run into a conventional woodworker that uses it or has even more than vaguely heard of it.
Brent
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