Take this how you'd like, i read this thread and was disappointed at some of the responses. Fanner did one hell of a nice job on that mannlicher, he even asked what caliber it would be best on. clearly this project was important to him. as a matter of fact, one of the so called masters is a lodge brother of mine. "Joe" has been around, knows the heads of firearm manfacturers personally and just had a rifle he fully engraved on the cover of one of leading rifle mags. When i told him of the topic and statements of this thread, he laughed and said " well the masters didnt always know what looked best, they did some things beacause it was easiest". Joe's statement parallels my own, and i think that if you cant say something positive about a guys project, dont say a word thats negative. We are a small NEF community here and we should supports the efforts of our brothers. Guns and gun owners get bashed enough without us bashing our own. If Fanner wanted expose a bit of the barrel with his projects design, then thats great. Who's to say that wrong, the masters ? who told them ?
just my own two cents, glenn macgregor