Carl,
I don't have much waste. I cut my lumber 4/4 and build laminated blanks of maple, walnut, and/or cherry. The wood that's solid, but not spectacular goes on the inside layers. That way I get to use almost all the wood. However I do endup with a bunch of shavings from planing and a bunch more from carving... It takes 4 bft of rough shaped lumber to make one gunstock. A blank usually weighs from 10 to 13 lbs. I trim them on the bandsaw close to the outline of the stock I'm duplicating, that gets the weight down below 10 lbs. After carving a sporter stock usually weighs 2 1/2 lbs and a benchrest type stock goes 3 1/2 lbs. So, I guess I do have a lot of waste after all. I've never looked at it like that. I've always looked at getting a stock for every 4 bft of lumber in a log. I guess I end up with a lot more sawdust and shavings than gunstocks.
Hal