The use of similar woods in the laminates and having the outside laminates either thick enough so shaping dose not show the laminates underneath or having the core shaped so the outside thinner laminates are not cut through reduces the obvious laminate visual. These rifles have been in use for well over 10 years and have never changed P O I so they have been a success in that regard. There was a US company who first showed a 3 piece laminate with a narrow 1/2 in or 5/8 inch central core so that fancy woods that might otherwise be unusable because of grain structure could be used .
I did do another stock for the 7x57 I posted earlier after I lent it to a friend for a hunt and he used it as a walking stick on the hill and there were big gouges in the wood inside the skeleton butt plate (I did re-set the butt plate slightly deeper to remove the gouges) so I made a laminate as a very light alternative for when I needed to loan it out. I wasn't as fussy about matching the woods so the shaped central core and is very obvious. You can clearly see the narrowing of the core from the action through to the fore end tip and back from the action through the wrist into the butt. Another advantage is that I can skeletonise the cores in the butt area and even cut the majority of the action shape into the relevant area just leaving a connecting strip top and bottom so that when it comes time to do the inletting I simply need to break through the top and bottom and the bulk of the inlet is done.
