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Maggie’s What's Your View II

I had a Thompson Center .50 Hawken rifle back around 1976 and man it was a shooter. Unfortunately, I let my hunting buddy buy it years ago. I decided I wanted another one only to find they stopped making them in 2012. Apparently, there are no newer rifles, so I went online and found this rust bucket "new old stock" kit barrel in Oregon, but the bore is perfect just surface rust on the outside.

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Then I found a used stock in Arizona, that was in good condition but had some rash and dents. Luckily, I found a new ramrod also in Arizona, which should be here today...
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After three days of draw filing, sanding, scraping varnish off, and bluing I knew I was close. Did I mention polishing brass? I was able to rework those parts into a nice gun. I don't know why Thompson covered up the nice Black walnut with the varnish/stain they used. I think it looks much better with just a few coats of hand rubbed oil.

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Now where is that ramrod.....
 
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Glacier NP. Massive glacial valleys. Hard to believe these glaciers basically collapsed and all melted in 1500 years. By my math ice melted at up to fifty feet a year but five on average.That’s A LOT of heat!! Much more than today. Had to read two books on local geology as the displays in GNP had zero on the glaciers that formed the park. Or how life moved up into these valleys in just a few centuries. Hell of a story to tell and zip on it or the massive glacial floods. Really sad the Park service can’t tell it. One of the pics shows the terminal moraine of the new glacier from little ice age just above Logan Pass. Really scary to think that the ice age is going to start again at some point.
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McNeil River Refuge in Alaska

ETA: A little background, this refuge is across the inlet from Homer, Alaska in southcentral. It’s a lottery system to get a spot to view bears for four days. Al. Department of Fish and Wildlife guides you to the viewing areas. Other than that you are restricted to camp. Your personal tent, no electricity, purify your own water and most people eat dehydrated food since you fly in on a Cessna 180 or beaver. Found it a bit confining; having said that, it will warp your view of bears in Alaska. Bears sleeping 15 feet from you while you eat a PB&J sandwich? Normal. White wolf comes within 50 feet of you? Normal. Walking between a sow and cubs? Done that. I think the bears view humans similar to a seagull.
 

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Damn that's clean. Don't see many of that era that aren't rotting away with rust.
Thank you. She is immaculate as far as body goes. Needs some TLC overall, but she is a nice rig. I nicknamed it the “beater”. A pic of the interior cause it’s clean as well
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My nephew got to shoot for the first time. His sister's got to when they were 3 and 4 on the one trip back to the US the family made. They are Air Force and were stuck in England for 12 years.

I gave his sister's Remington Model 5s for their 4th birthday. He is getting his great grandmother's 22 after I make some repairs.

AFAIK neither my late brother or I shot the sister's rifle they brought up with them. So I made some test shots to make sure it was on target. Then let him try. At first he didn't want to because of the noise. Then after I shot some more and his mother shot he tried it and liked it.

After a couple mags I set up a dualing tree and pulled out my scoped Savage. Then he really liked it.
 
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