Abut a hundred years ago I asked for help with finding an M-S specialist gunsmith for a Model 1956 "Stutzen" in 7x57 that my brother had acquired (more like stolen if you go by the price he paid). He wanted it restored and scoped, since he is even older than I am and we both dislike but require scopes.

Got a bunch of replies by post and PM, all of them helpful. Steve Bertram ("SKB") recommended a 'smith fairly near where my brother lives in Bainbridge Island, WA, Steve Nelson near Corvallis, OR.

We decided to make Steve's shop a stop on our annual "fishing expedition" for guns and parts and stuff, and went by his place while trolling the Willamette Valley as far as Grant's Pass and back. Spent an hour getting acquainted and looking at the rifle and letting Steve know what Dave wanted done. Left the rifle with him to evaluate further.

Came back on our way back to WA and got the verdicts. Steve had removed copper fouling from the bore and lightly JB'd it and found it excellent. He dug thru his stock of hard-to-get parts and found TWO German-made removable M-S scope mounts, one with 36mm rings and one with 1" rings. Dave chose the 1" because he wanted to fit a Leupold 1.5x5 variable on it (with a #4 "German" reticle, naturally). The stock will have to be lightly inletted to fit the mount (pretty standard on M-Ss, I hear).

I thought the bluing was fine. Steve thought the bluing was fine. My brother wanted it to look new, and besides who listens to their Little Brother? And the customer IS "always right," as we all know.

So the rifle will have a scope and mount fitted with the necessary stock surgery and metal and mount reblued to match the hot bluing that they used on these later M-Ss.

I think it will be a treasure--plain but ergonomically and ballistically super. It fits my brother better than most gloves.

BTW, if you have a project and can use it as an excuse to bother Steve Nelson, a trip to his neatly hidden shop is really worth the drive. He's a charming and erudite man who really knows how to make rifles (and shotguns). And his gun-related library is worth the trip, truly drool-worthy; a gun bibliophile's dream. (And I found a box of Kynoch .369 Purdey Cordite sitting in an odd corner of the shop--hidden depths....).

Anyway, many thanks, SKB and forum members for making this connection that we wouldn't have been able to make by ourselves in a thousand years.

I'll try to get Steve Nelson to post a pic of the finished Stutzen, including its shop-made cocking piece peep sight that he'd never seen before. (He buzzed a pic off to the M-S Collectors Assn. to see if anyone knows who made it).

Mike Armstrong