I remember sitting in front of the fire on cold winter days when I was young and looking through my favorite gun catalogs. I had the old fold out Ruger catalog with the beautiful Ruger No 1, the shiny Weatherby catalog with the MKVs and the Colt catalog with the Colt Sauer 90 with gorgeous wood and super slick bolt but my favorite one of all was the Catalog from Steyr-Daimler Puch. It has beautiful wood stocks with fancy carvings and fish scale “checkering” and deeply engraved receivers but the one rifle that was my favorite and the one I wanted more than any other gun, the one gun that I thought epitomized the perfect hunting gun was the green stocked Model M Professional in .30-06. I knew I could hunt the world with that one gun and be happy for the rest of my life (pretty smart for an 8 year old huh?). It took me a long time before I finally owned one. I first bought an MIII .270 that shot under a 1/4” repeatedly with cheap ammo but it just wasn’t the same and I sold it, I then got a MIII in .30-06 and it too was accurate but still not quite right. Next up I got a black stocked M Professional with sights in .270 but still I was not satisfied. More MIIIs followed and another M Pro with a brown stock but something was still missing. I loved the way the stock fit me especially for offhand shooting. Looking through several websites the other day I came across this ugly duckling and figured out what had been missing. That damn ugly green stock. This one feels like it may just stick around