I normally dislike giving up on a project before it gets started, but that's what happened with this one. I wanted a cast bullet project for this year that I could spend time on without having to spend a great deal of money. When I found a Savage 219B in 30-30 I thought that it was a dream come true. The 26" barrel held promise for some serious experimentation and being single shot break action, I would have lots of room to play with bullets and seating depth. The only drawback I could imagine was the 1:12" twist that might be marginal for the Lyman 311284 210 grain bullet I wanted to try first. I really believed that this bullet at 16-1800 fps would be an awsome shooter. I ordered the mould during the two days I spent cleaning up the bore. While I was at that chore, I found that what I had thought was a small amount of pitting about half way, was in fact, not. The bore seemed almost pristine after getting all the fouling out, bright and shiney front to rear, you could still see the machining chatter marks, and the rifling was still sharp. It was now time to clean up the action. After getting the stock off and dismanteling the action I found that the firing pin was broken, maybe not a problem. I checked with Numrich and sure enough, they had one, so I got that order in the mail. So, today while I was at my favorite, Breakfast-Pawn-Gun & Sporting Goods store, I was conversing with the individual that sold me the Savage about what had transpired and he offered to trade it to something else, which I of course refused, until as I was walking out the door, right there smiling at me was a Winchester 94 surrounded by all those Marlins. Since I'd been looking for a "beater" Winnie off and on for a couple of years, I took him up on his offer. I found out that I knew this particular rifle, it belonged to the father of a man I grew up with. He had bought it new in 64 or 65. The wood is still pretty good, a bit oil soaked at the action, but not bad. The bluing is gone from the receiver, and the screws have been staked at some point. The rest of the little gun is still bright blue.
Now, here I am, a project and a gun that don't match, so, in changing the project, I'm looking for suggestions to try with this little pearl.
