Bret4207
At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
I have what I believe to be a Marlin 1897 Deluxe rifle, at least per Brophys Marlin book it looks like it. I truly would love to send it off to Turnbull or some place like that and have the wood and metal restored. The barrel needs lining too. Beautiful shape to the stock with the fawns foot at the bottom of the pistol grip. It might not be as high a model as I think because the checkering is that shallow, shallow type and I can't be sure how much is wear and how much is factory. There's still a little coloring left, but it's really faded. In it's prime it must have been some really nice rifle. The ball park quotes I got put me in shock! Completely out of my league at this time.
A friend had a BL22. Only handled it once and it's the only one I've ever seen I think. He was big into Browning. Very glossy, very slick, almost too pretty to take out in the woods. Now that I think on it, I don't believe I've ever even seen a schematic of the parts that make it work!
Another old 22 I have is a very worn Stevens Favorite. I swear, some people just shouldn't be allowed to own a hammer, much less a rifle. The bore isn't toast, but it isn't anything to brag on. The problem is idiots dry firing and prying stuck cases out with what may have been a large screw driver or something equally useless. Whatever it was, they sure moved some metal around. I peened some back in the general direction it originally started at, but there's only so much you can do. If I ever get good enough with the MIG welder, I might be able to fill some divots, but I know I'm not good enough with the torch and rod. They were nice little rifles. I know where the is a Stevens Marksman in 25RF. I tried trading into it and buying it and I was in the money at the time (9/11 was good for OT if nothing else) but the guy wouldn't sell. That was a very, very nice little squirrel gun. At the time guys were taking 22 Hornet brass (IIRC) and converting it into a 25 RF case, only CF. It's not at all hard to alter a rifle like that to CF, just move the FP basically. They were loading it like they loaded the few 22WCF's around and used a sized down .258 cast bullet I think of about 60 grs. Aguilla or some firm came out with factory 25RF loads some years after that I believe. St Elmer said the 25 RF should have been put in a revolver and it would have worked like a 22LR or 22WRF out of a rifle in performance. I bet he was right- again!
My Dad had a Stevens 44 that might have originally been 22WRF or the Stevens version of that cartridge. The chamber was corroded so he cut it back and re-chambered to 22Mag. That was a pretty nice rig that I didn't appreciate at the time. Dad was okay with me using all the cheap 22LR I wanted out of the gun shop, but 22Mags, they cost money even back then!
