Bungs are usually made of a close grained softish hardwood such as poplar cut on the end grain, so it will compress evenly - a coarse wood screw is usually necessary to get enough 'bite' to pull it out of its tapered seat..... In beer barrels they are used once and thrown away when the barrel is re-filled - the screw goes into the spile hole (the spile is removed to let air into the barrel so the beer will flow out of the tap, other wise a vacuum lock will occur)...
Wooden beer barrels usually (in the UK) have a brass bush into which the bung fits...

In seaching this image, just found this one....
Labelled the Best bung hole keg...... (rest not visible as the posting has ended and eBay had deleted the entry - just the thumbnail image was left on-line)