Friend used a POS 20 double to make a double rifle in .444 Marlin. He did a great job. He went through it completely part by part because the POS had a reputation for poorly fit parts and soft steel. He bushed the firing pins, cleaned up the action inside and out, hardened parts as needed or made new ones. New stock in quarter sawed English Walnut with just a hint of fiddle back finished the gun. His sleeved barrels would put two rounds touching at 75 yards. Recoil was reasonable and it was a great White Tail Deer gun and devestating on wild pigs. Wish I knew who got it after he died. I'd been happy to buy it myself.
He choose the .444 as a brush gun. He did look at 30-30 and 45-70 but found a set of barrel blanks he could chamber to .444 for almost nothing. Later he was making another double rifle using a POS .410 that he was going to make into a .25-20 or some other mild rimmed wildcat based on the Winchester .225 case. I gave him several hundred new and maybe 500 fired cases I no longer need. The man had talent and patience of an oyster. Talented as they come but not the most tolerant fellow. To hm the world was full of idiots and a-holes until proven otherwise. As a gunsmith he could fix, build, refinish or stock anything. But with his personality he choose to work on mostly his own stuff and turn down work from all but a few of us.
