Wood, good wood looks great. With that being said I have to relay a story that made me go to synthetics. I had a rifle built using a mauser 98 action. Everything was redone, shilen barrel, timney trigger, bolt rebuilt and balanced and jeweled, then I had a local stockmaker make a mannlicker stock for it using dark walnut. It turned out beatifull trouble was I didn't have time to hunt with it because I was coaching H.S. baseball and my boys were playing sports and we were buildig cars etc. ( too busy )Anyway I shot it at the range occasionally and it was a tack driver. Finally, about six years ago I started hunting again and took it in the woods, after the first couple of dings I got over being mad. One week I went to Ala. for a hunting trip and wound up hunting 3 days in pouring rain, never saw a deer until the 4th and last day, the rain died down at daybreak and a beautifull 10 point stepped out at about 110 yards, no problem. I held dead on and fired, the buck just stood there looking my way wondering what happened. Anyway, when I got home I set up a target at 75 yards to see where it was hitting, it was over a foot low and it was due to severe wood swelling from the heavy rain. I have NEVER hunted with a wood stock again, I put synthetics on all my guns.

SOTHRDNK