Went and reclaimed a nib Marlin XL 7 SS 270 I'd stashed that a friend of a friend had wanted and did'nt want to pay for it as fast as I did....that was going to be the funding for another brand in a 7mm of some sort to pair with the M70 XTR Mauser I picked up last fall. Adv'd the NIB Marlin on another site for a couple weeks and got no takers...so I'll scope it up and go from there Thanks all for the comments and input.
Ron