Piper-

The tone you might detect from me around this could best be noted as resonance from the sense that I have -- that the proofs on those barrel flats have
nothing to do with the rifle barrels sweated into them, or the work that was involved in getting them there.

Chasing the proofs won't likely get us any closer to identifying the maker of the donor gun either --
not that we'd get any fruit (low hanging or otherwise) from that information.

Here's another way to see where I'm coming from.
You and I could be walking home from Prince's Parlor late one night after much too much whiskey.
Having taken the wrong way down the sidewalk we somehow end up down by the drug store where we discover debris from what seems to have been a bit of a fender-bender.
We stoop down to examine the shards of broken tail light and chrome trim when I think I recognize the paint color as the light blue from a '74 Pinto.
You look at me sideways and let me know I'm a few years and a couple of car manufacturers off,
letting me know it's obviously a pile of wreckage from your sister-in-law's '69 Olds 88.

Both of us stoned and half blind on Jack and Coke decide it's a good idea to walk over to her place behind the Methodist Church and have a look.

Naturally we get lost on the way there and end up at the Distillery building, where we realize we've completely forgotten what we were doing,
and take a seat on the staircase for a bit of a rest. Fumbling for a smoke, we realize how completely ugly the staircase is,
and how irrelevant to the old building's architecture it is -
and that whoever built that frickin staircase should be hung in public on Sunday morning.

Ruminating on how we'd write the newspaper announcement for the public hanging, we realize that the staircase is pretty sturdy.
During this moment of clarity, I take from you the cigarette that you somehow finally got lit and take a long drag from the lit end.
You start bitching that I just put the damn thing out, and we figure this is a good time to get back to the Parlor for a nightcap.
On the way there we see your sister-in-law (who by the way is half a sheet further into the wind than we are), I realize my tounge really hurts,
and the sight of your sister-in-law brings the taste of ashes to my mouth...



Cheers
Tinker