"Many years ago, I wrote him a letter asking about his experience with the Scout rifle. His reply was printed on a dot-matrix printer. The pages had separated along the perforations, but he taped them together, which got the job done. THAT was Finn Aagaard in a nutshell." -- Okie John
I had to laugh. That was so Finn! Brings back memories of when he started using a computer and that old dot matrix printer. He had a frequent hate relationship with that computer, but it made his writing job easier. He had a better way to go from a pencil and yellow pad, via his two finger typing, to an ASCI file for his publisher. Thanks for making me think back.
" Likewise I remember one of his articles where he was sporterizing a military Mauser as a project. Basically he painted the stock with something like bed liner paint and rubbed a handful of sand into the pistol grip and forearm while wet to serve as non slip checking." -- Bangeye
And yes Bangeye, that very rifle, with the sand from Sandy Creek and its stock epoxied back together after a horse broke it in two, was one of the last rifles he had still kept. Interestingly that old .30-06 wore a nice 4X Swarovski scope. Entirely practical, homely, and quite lethal enough for game. It remains the same today. He also still had his Steyr Model 1912, Mauser 98 in .308. Neither had been passed down to family members. They were still his up to the end. While he had taken up with the .308 for his own practical reasons, he never forsook the .30-06.
It is such a shame we don't still have Finn Aagaard around. There is no one quite like him.
Jaguar
