Gil:
i notice the checkering on your gun is not the skipline style i am familiar with on most MF. my ideal does have skipline style and i suspect your gun is of the same era (mid-late 1930's).
your original photos don't show checkering - so i'm curious if it was restored as original, or changed to conventional checkering during the renovation.
i don't particularly like the skipline, and would certainly like to have the "missing lines" filled in. your checkering pattern is quite handsome - as is the gun....
tom
Gil got his Ideal through me as have a few other members here. I have my own Ideal in 12 gauge. Originally mine had the skipline chequering done to, as near as we could figure out, 38 lpi. It was crazy fine. So fine as to be useless.
In discussions with my smith, and knowing I would be hunting the gun, when the wood was refinished we went to a standard style of chequering with 28 LPI. I know full well it's not original but it works better.
When we were discussing Gil's gun, my experience with my own highly influenced Chris's and my recommendation to Gil. These aren't collector guns....they are higher grade shooters.
Brent, as far as the safety goes, any approach is a compromise. I don't use the safety. Ever. I hunt with the gun open with two shells in the chambers and close the gun on the rise. I typically hunt the gun on open plains, when not in close quarters with other hunters and dogs. It's the best approach I have been able to come up with. I have often hunted with it in the company of another Ideal owner, so we are both very cognizant of the safety issue.
It also helps, I suppose, that I was taught to shoot by my "old school" father. Who taught me that it was foolish to ever depend on or expect a safety to be that with saves you from your own stupidity. So I have done my best, my whole life, to handle guns as though there was no safety.
