Have been selling some of my rifles over the past couple of years, partly because am turning 70 this fall, and the gun collection has been considered part of the "retirement" investment. And one I will probably sell over the next few years is the O'Connor Memorial.
That said, mine is one of the recoil-pad models.
If you do indeed get around to selling that rifle I'd really appreciate it if you would send me a PM. They are a beautiful rifle and the one I saw at auction went for too high of a cost so I didn't buy it. I'm still on the lookout and if I was able to buy yours that would be pretty cool. I'm 46 now and I've been reading your work since I was 14 or so. The combination of it being an "O'Connor-Barsness" Winchester 70 would be nice in itself.
As an aside, while you are talking retirement, if I remember correctly the first article of yours that I read might have been "Old, Mild and Good" about cartridges such as the 6.5x55 and 7x57.
