Thanks SDH-MT. I thought it was a bit unique. Like you, I've never seen one of those recoil pads either. The one here is totally hard and "boiled over," so I'm not even going to try to remove it. It wouldn't survive, I'm afraid and that pad is a lot of the gun's provenance.
Like Mike A said, it's a working gun. It becomes clear that Ackley's emphasis was on barrel and metal work. The shaping of the stock looks a bit awkward in spots, even though it's comfortable. The inletting inside shows some fairly rough chisel work as if a "production" guy were trying to do it quickly. The checkering isn't bad and is 18 lpi. There are no sling swivels either, and today we'd find that a bit strange. But it all works.
I plan to touch nothing other than to shoot it and clean it once in a while, and otherwise keep it as it is.
I know this is a difficult question, but does anybody know what something like this might be worth? Obviously there aren't any on any of the sales sites to compare to but there must be some more of these out there somewhere, and somebody might know.
