Though members might like to see these grips, made from
Holly Wood. I never saw this wood before Dan Dvisi did some
work for me on a old Ruger SS. Looks to me like a better grip
material than Ivory colored plastics. I have had considerable
experience with about every species of tree native to my area.
I have went out of my way to saw odd ball wood, just to see
what it would look like. Have never came across Holly big enough
to saw here in Ohio. I have some Mullbery that was sawed 20 yr
ago that I what to try.

Attached Images

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Please show some photos if you get into the mulberry. I, too, have some mulberry tucked away and wonder how it would do for grips.

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SWHF #448

I like it.
How is Holly to work with? A soft wood, or any drawbacks to using it? Will it yellow with time?

I have never worked with Holy, suppose to be pretty hard stuff.
Not sure of the species, or where it comes from. Read it has
uses in boat building. On the Mullberry, haven't done anything
with it yet. Did bandsaw out a set of blanks for friend who is
going to stock a SxS shotgun with it. Tree came out of grandpas
yard, gun was grandpas, that's reason for stocking with the
Mullberry. Wood seems very dense,with a purplish cast. Tree was
a red Mullberry. There is a white Mullberry, don't know if wood is
different. There was a lot of Mullberry around here, not so much
anymore. Persimmon and Butternut scarce also, Blight? Have
sawed Apple, peach, plum, pear, cherry, sassafras and all the nut
trees. The fruit trees were all old farm trees,not the type planted
now for fruit crops. The fruit woods were used to some extent for
muzzle loader stocks. Some of it is pretty hard stuff, similar to
Wild Cherry.

I have two huge mulberry trees right on the edge of my property, hanging over the fence.
Any of y'all want to come over and cut 'em down, you can have every piece of 'em.

Bring your big truck and come on down.

Send me a PM if you're interested...just don't fill up my inbox all at once, okay?

In the overall scheme of things, American Holly is actually pretty soft. It does have a real tight grain. Its difficult to find a nice piece without a lot of twig knots, the other problem with Holly is drying it. Holly has a high water content when freshly cut and there is a mold that will quickly grow on it and turn it gray. The best way to avoid that is to kiln dry it or cut mill it in the coldest months so that it has a chance to dry a bit before the mold can get started. Once you get a nice piece, it does look a lot like ivory when finished.

Kurac, how would you rate its hardness, say against common
Black Walnut or Mahogany? Also what region would trees big
enough to saw come from?

I would say its about as hard as Claro Walnut or soft maple, Red or Big Leaf. I have not idea what region you would find a tree big enough to harvest.

They use a system called the janka hardness scale to measure how hard a wood is. American Holly measures at 1020 lbf..just a bit harder than black walnut.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki

tinytimbers.com › pdf › chart_janka

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1st smiles,lies.Last,gunfire.

I bough an old text book, Trees of North America, at a yard sale.
It has a lot of good information, uses, Btus, regions, ID, ect-
but doesn't have any hardness system, other than mentioning
"Relative" hardness. I also have a old Chemistry text, 1920s,
that goes into all the industrial uses of Oils, waxes, and other
extracts from trees. It is amazing how many products came
from trees and vegetation before modern chemistry came up
with man made replacements.

The relative hardness is the operative word. Some woods like walnut (especially Claro) vary quite a bit other woods not so much and some are just always rock hard. Holly is pretty consistent though as far as hardness goes.

Back in early 70s, I got some good lessons on local hardwoods.
I had a old guy contact me, he wanted to buy hi grade hardwood
I was in my early 20s and though I was a great woodsman. He
wanted to talk to me because I had mapped the better part of
3 counties. He wanted to know locations of hardwoods that might
be bought. We took out topo maps, and I would circle area with
trees. He would say, those aren't any good. I asked why. He
told me that the trees in the creek bottoms were to soft, because
of faster growth, due to water. The tree that was on top of the
ridge, had denser grain. During that summer he gave me a lot
of Timber smarts. The company he worked for would come in
and buy just one tree and bring it out. They were the most
selective outfit I ever ran into.