The choice of stock wood.
I'm not yet finished the "stock stainless" and I am already thinking about what wood to use for the carbine stock. I've also decided to have a stainless steel butt plate. It will be formed of 1/8" plate and I will bend over two tangs on the top and bottom. These will balance with the tangs on the "stock stainless". I could then mill some checkering into the plate.
Anyhow, back to the wood.
This guy's Claro Walnut is insane:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...392646124&rd=1
Unfortunately, his wood is in high demand from both stockmakers and luthiers alike. It usually fetches a pretty high price. This guy must be living in a golden grove of Claro Walnut trees somewhere in CA. Lucky for him. His blocks seem to be much larger than what I would need for a luger carbine stock. Sure is fantastic wood though.
The small size of the carbine stock opens the possibilities to woods that would normally not be availible in the size of a full stock. I also don't feel weight is much of an issue.
A dense rosewood would fit the bill. Cocobolo is one such possibility. However, I think Cocobolo is a little overused on firearms these days. It just does'nt seem to fit the nostalgic spirit of this project.
I've got some slightly figured black walnut on hand. But I have never been happy checkering black walnut. It's too soft.
I also have some tiger striped hard maple. I'm not sure this will look good with the stainless unless it is darkened. There is a hole art devoted to darkening tiger maple and I don't think I want to go there right now.
I don't know, maybe I can do a first go with the black walnut. That way if I make a mistake it's no big loss.
It would be nice is to find a piece of claro walnut that matches the grips already on the gun.