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This story is about an old lady who was badly used during her 110 years or so and left to obscurity in the dust and darkness at the back of a friend's vault. I passed by her many times, never giving her a second glance, in my search for one who had weathered time more gracefully. One day, however, I gave her a second look and decided that she deserved better.

She had started life as a BSA-manufactured Grade 1 sporter. Her bore had succumbed completely to years of corrosive priming and poor cleaning. Along the way, her ebony forend tip had been lost and someone had attempted to place a piece of deer antler in its place. Her butt had disappeared as well and someone had badly hewn a replacement out of the plainest piece of walnut ever seen and covered it with opaque brown stain. Her original magazine was gone. So were her magazine cut-off and dust cover, but it would not have been unusual to remove them from a working rifle.

On the plus side, her magazine had been replaced with an authentic period-correct 5 round carbine magazine and she sported a nice old Cogswell and Harrison buttplate. The rest of the metal work was intact and not rusty -- just aged to a nice brown patina. The forend was sound but the chequring had been worn away in places from legitimate use and what remained was filled with 100+ years of oil and sweat.

So the project began. The first order of busness was to have the barrel rebored, necked and throated to .338". I now have a 338-303 (or a 303-338 for the British), which should be ballistically similar to the old .33 Winchester. Below, on the left is the cartridge loaded with a 220 gr cast bullet. On the right is the old MkVI .303 for comparison

The next step was to remove the deer antler forend tip and to replace it with a new one from ebony. Below you can see the before and after.
Before

and

And after

Next, to re-work the old butt. Reshaped, faux-grained, stained and a hand-rubbed oil finish applied.
Before

And After

Here are some more pictures of the final result

And now to the mystery. Along the way someone had carefully and skillfully peened-out the retailer's and manufacturer's marks. Why? I'd appreciate any ideas. See below

Additionally, the left side of the butt-socket had been stamped as below. Why?

I had wondered if she had been pressed into miltary service at one point, but there are no "sold out of service" marks

So the chequring renains to be done. What else? Given that the collector value has been diminished by the indignities she has suffered along the way, I could clean up and re-cut the missing chequring, and I could rust-blue the metal. Or, I could leave it as-is as a tribute to and memory of her journey through life.

What do you think? And thanks for reading.

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