OK, im defiantly crazy,,,
a friend came over i shoot with, saw my 58 CVA Mountain rifle and wanted it,
I took it in trade for refinishing a couple of modern rifle stocks for my buddy, he got it from the original owner, and has been fired very very little, bought new back in the late 70's
low serial number, I've heard the lower ones were american made
frizzen hardly scratched up, BUT the stock had been carved and wood burned, UGLY AS SIN,,I fired it once last year,,liked it, but its sat in my gunsafe now for 4 yrs,
always wanted to re-stock it,
well he wanted it and i said we'd shoot for it, he put 200 smackers on my truck hood, next to the rifle,
we shot 10 rounds each with my zouave .58 (oh he shoots competitions with me so it was a fair smoke pole match)
I won by 2 closer holes,
put a few more bucks with the 200 and ordered a TOTW Leman stock with only the 1"barrel inlet
gonna be a long project, need to buy all the parts in the kit, as my lock and trigger guard aint right,
and oh so its 3 inches shorter than there 36" .58 so its a canoe trade gun now
its also my first scratch? build? I built a 54 hawken kit back in 81 when i was stationed on a lighthouse,,
and i definitely need better chisels, and better glasses,,
my inletting of the land is something to not be desired,
I did file down the profile of the tang, to match the barrel, as its a barrel-lift-out tang, draw filed the barrel and sanded to 350git ill either rust blue it or brown it, can't decide.
I've seen some beautiful stocks done in a reddish cast, and some with the brown, I'm leaning towards the reddish, but don't know how to get there,
been playing with the aquafortis,,OMG that in itself might drive me to insanity my tests are giving me an orangish red,
cheers John
ill be updating as i go along