Definitely not my taste, sure as hell wouldn't have that done to
a piece of walnut.
But I'd love that rifle, its cool as can be in its context.
Exactly how I feel. A friend has one very similar to that.
The first CF rifle I ever had was a Remington 03-A3, serial number in the 3 million range, 4 groove barrel. It had had the original stock reworked into a pretty decent Mannlicher style with blue steel fore end cap, barrel cut and nicely crowned at just over 19 inches, original military peep sight in the rear, but a nice gold bead ramp front sight installed. Barrel and action fully glass bedded. All work was very nicely done.
I was 15, hanging out in the LGS one Friday night when the guy who'd done it came in with it to trade it in on a Sheridan Blue Streak 5mm pellet rifle. Don, the shop owner, gave him the Sheridan and ten bucks for the rifle, the guy left and Don put it up on the used rack behind the counter. I asked how much he was going to price it at. Don was no fool. "I've got $37.50 in it, you can have it for that."
I had about $5.00 on me. "Will you put it on layaway for me?"
"Sure."
It took me about a month to accumulate the balance.
All I ever shot with it were woodchucks. A friend of mine handloaded with his father and loaded me 130 grain (Speer?) hollowpoints over 49 grains of Hi-Vel #2. That 19" barrel was probably largely responsible for the state of my hearing today, but those loads sure disintegrated woodchucks.
The fall before I went into the Navy, I let a guy use it who was going deer hunting with me. By then I had a 788 in .222 and I was happy to use that (Stunt shooter at a young age!) He asked if he could use it for a while and I let him. When it was time to get it back, he came up with some cock and bull story that I soon found out was a lie, but by then he'd left town. I'll give him this, while I was away at boot camp he came by and gave my mother the $50 I told him it was worth. I'd sure like to have that rifle back.
