For those who are maybe recuperating from a broken leg, stuck in jail, or otherwise have lots of time on their hands and care to read the entire saga, here is the last link, complete with other links to the prior threads pertaining to this rifle.....

http://forums.nitroexpress.com/showflat....&PHPSESSID=

Anyway;

Here is the final product, and this time, after one barrel change and three subsequent barrel cuts, is the Stutzen, of sorts.

Well, I cut the barrel to 18", fitted the Ruger banded front sight, then didn't like it...

So I chopped it again to 16", split the band, slipped it on, and the gunsmith crowned the bbl, soldered the band on and reblued it.

That required the sight to be filed to zero. Sight blade is an NECG Sourdough. Sight base is a Ruger ramp for the .45-70 No.1, slight reshaped to make it look a little less "Ruger".

I brought my old gun vise to the range to make the filing process a bit simpler. All went well.

Then zeroing. First, shot at 20 meters to get the thing on the paper, then moved out to 70 meters for the iron sight zeroing.

With my univeral double sling adapter, the stubby 16" bbl will work out great for crawling thru brush and the like. This will come in handy for bear hunting.

The chronograph told an interesting story. My original goal was to have a short carbine with similar ballistics to my long barreled 9.3x57's. I thought about chopping a x57, but always choked because I felt the actual velocity of a 16 inch barrelled x57 would fall under 2000. As it turns out, the chorono'd velocity of the 9.3x62 w/ 285 grain Prvi and RL15 w/ reformed .30-06 cases is 2065, exactly the factory velocity of the 9.3x57 Norma loads in the rifle, and w/ Prvi brass, 2095, a bit faster yet; perfect.

Lastly, I fired one shot in the jugs and boards and it did as thought; full penetration 4 Boards, 3 Jugs, found expanded well in 4th jug.