Originally Posted By: Boltman
Vall - a tremendous improvement on that Schoyen Ballard. That hot blue job was a travesty on that rifle. A nice case color job was the way to go.


Beyond the hot blue, the gun's barrel showed the signs of years of being a competitive rifle, with likely many owners. It had four pairs of holes at various spacing for different scopes. It also had Pope cuts for a Pope telescope, and two extra dovetails for scope bases.
I really spent 3 days ignoring it at Denver the year I bought it, as did anyone else who saw it. But on Sat. afternoon as we were getting close to leaving for the day, I decided to take a look at it, just because it was so cheap. I asked the seller if the bore was good, and I planned to not look further if he said it was anything less than excellent. He confirmed it was excellent, so I asked to look it over.
After a examination, and noting the obvious defects of hot bluing and extra holes and dovetails, I asked if he was open to an offer, which he was. I made what I thought was a silly offer, and he took it quickly. I was worried, and wondered if I missed something. But I had to go through with it then. I paid him, and began to give it a harder look when he asked if I wanted to follow him out to his rig and get the case for it?
I was really puzzled, but played it cool and said, I did since it obviously came with the gun. We walked to his SUV and he opens the back to show the Hereford hide case. I opened the case, and immediately I saw the Lyman Super Targetspot 20x! A B&M powder measure, and a couple bags of bullets. A cleaning kit in an old brass tube with screw on caps, and some Ideal wad punches! I asked the guy why he didn't list all this on his price card? He grabbed the card and flipped it over to show me the pieces listed, on the back side! Amazing. I never picked the card up, and he never mentioned the extras!
I was speechless, and when I got back to our tables my friends said they thought I was just buying a gun, not doing a bunch of shopping? Told them the story, and we all had a good chuckle at how this purchase happened.
I filled all the extra holes and dovetails, but left two pairs at 7.25" spacing, plus I left the Pope cuts as they're cool, and impossible to fill without welding that would ruin the perfect rifling.