The last of them were sold through Winchester & had case coloured flat sided receivers with a flowered scroll motif in the centre of the panel.
I remember Jaqua blowing them out for < $US1400 at the end; they were cased. There were a number of folks down here that bought them and they seemed to be a bit less clunky, probably due to the 27.5" bbls. that were fitted. I don't recall the KG range exactly, but want to say it was closer to field weight than cmpetition weight, so 1.3 rather than 1.5 or 6.
I am partial to the early racing stripe frames, but don't care for the horizontal slits on the fore arms in leiu of chequering, tho it can be remedied easily enough. I know of one early striped receiver gun that had somewhere north of a half million rounds through it w/o issues before an ejector decided to get a bit recalcitrant. The receiver had been nickled twice, so the frame was on its third finish before that happened. I'd say that's fair reliable ;-) It could have used some new parts and it did get freshened up when the issues started, see below ..
Shoot one enough and the firing pin holes in the breech face may elongate, making opening difficult or in a worse case perhaps even breaking the nose of the firing pin. When that happens just send it to Laibs (sp?) and they can fit a carbide type insert in the standing breech face that will likely out live the shooter. I think that when the numbers are high and the care low is where the wear comes into play. Look at the standing breech face and look at the firing pin noses as good indicators of much use. Giacumo (sp?) can bring them back to new, excepting the aforementioned standing breech wear, but the other guys can tend to that.
Last edited by tw; 03/26/08 11:40 PM.